Restoration
by Jayne Foyer
Summary: The next generation of the Teen Titans are suddenly attacked one by one. Suspicion and mistrust rise, both in their own generation and that of their parents. Nobody is safe. Not even from their own blood.
1. Silent ones

Here's the new roster: Damian Wayne (Robin), Iris West (Impulse), Lian Harper (Arsenal; Mia's still Speedy), Maxine Baker (Fauna), Milagro Reyes (Green Lantern), Chris Kent (Superboy; Conner gave him the name and now has a new one), Sin Lance (Jade Canary) and Jai West (Jai has no superpowers, according to Flash: Rebirth).

Damian is about 17 here. In this universe, Dick went back to Nightwing but Stephanie is still Batgirl. Also Lian Harper never died (although that story is not entirely retconned and might be addressed), and Chris Kent's out of the Phantom Zone (obviously). And as I mentioned, Milagro is a Green Lantern. Other than that, there aren't any major changes to canon.

* * *

**Chapter One: Silent ones**

_"Do you indeed speak righteousness, silent ones?  
Do you judge blamelessly, you sons of men?  
No, in your heart you plot injustice.  
You measure out the violence of your hands in the earth.  
The wicked go astray from the womb.  
They are wayward as soon as they are born, speaking lies.  
Their poison is like the poison of a snake;  
like a deaf cobra that stops its ear,  
which doesn't listen to the voice of charmers,  
no matter how skillful the charmer may be.  
Break their teeth, God, in their mouth.  
Break out the great teeth of the young lions, LORD.  
Let them vanish as water that flows away.  
When they draw the bow, let their arrows be made blunt.  
Let them be like a snail which melts and passes away,  
like the stillborn child, who has not seen the sun.  
Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns,  
he will sweep away the green and the burning alike.  
The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance.  
He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked;  
so that men shall say, "Most certainly there is a reward for the righteous.  
Most certainly there is a God who judges the earth."  
_-Psalm 58

"This is dumb."

"No, _you're_ dumb. This is very easy."

"Oh, shut up, Damian. We can't all be as smart as you."

Damian almost shrugged, his irritated expression melting into a smug smirk. "True," he said.

"I don't understand. What's the point of this, again?"

"The point," Milagro responded, leaning back in her seat, "is to win."

"Yes, thanks Milly," replied Sin, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "I understood that much."

"The point is to buy a lot of houses and hotels and stuff," answered Iris, immediately beside Sin instead of Damian. "So that you own the most stuff. So you have a _monopoly_. Get it?"

Sin frowned. "What's a monopoly?"

"A monopoly," Jai replied, "is the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service."

"Thanks, Jai," she said, something like a blush entering her cheeks. "That makes sense."

Jai replied with a shy smile. "You're welcome."

Milagro made a faux-retching sound. Iris punched her in the shoulder then sat down with Damian again, leaning against him, one hand curled around his arm.

Chris blinked. "This is all too complicated for me," he said. "I'll make some more popcorn."

"Oh, I want some!" said Maxine, her eyes lighting up from behind her pile of Monopoly Money.

"I'll make enough for everyone," replied Chris, heading towards the kitchen of Titans Tower.

"Hey, banker," said Lian, turning to Jai. "I need another hotel."

"That'll be one hundred Monopoly Moneys."

"Isn't it Monopoly Dollars?" asked Iris.

"I'm pretty sure it's Moneys," Jai replied. "Otherwise that'd be alienating foreign currencies. Right?"

"No," said Damian, moving his battleship forward six spaces. "As I recall, in England they were Monopoly Pounds."

Iris looked at Damian skeptically. "You really played Monopoly when you lived in England?"

"It happens to be an extremely educational game, in terms of economic management," he replied coolly.

"So _that's_ why you're winning," said Lian, her eyes narrowed. "I bet they taught you all the best ways to cheat."

"Yes," he replied mildly, "essentially. However I haven't actually had to cheat in this game, because all of you are so bad at it."

"I don't know," said Sin fairly. "Maxine's doing really well."

Maxine smiled. "We had family game night every Friday at my house," she said, her little face turning pink. "I've had a lot of practice."

"Not for long, Baker," said Damian, pointing at his eyes and then to hers. "Your family's assets will soon be mine."

She giggled. Iris laughed and put an arm around Damian's shoulders. "You're terrifying, Dami."

"I learned from the best."

Chris returned, multiple bowls of popcorn floating around him. "Popcorn!" he said brightly. "I hope I made enough."

"Thanks, Chris," said Milagro, taking a bowl. "This is more than enough."

"Pft, you're forgetting about the West twins over here," said Lian. "_Nothing_ is enough for them."  
Jai and Iris shrugged simultaneously, both reaching for a bowl of their own. "I can't deny that one," said Iris.

"Nope, me neither," added her brother. "Besides, you guys have nothing to complain about. You should see our house on Thanksgiving. Right, Damian?"

"I can attest to that," said Damian, nodding. "It's a nightmare, a whirlwind of food and endless consumption. I wonder how your poor mother does it."

"I am actually like eighty percent positive our mom is half Amazon," said Jai seriously. "It would explain everything. Including how Irey and I are so badass, considering how our dad is the punching bag of the JLA."

"Oh, no," said Milagro, rolling her eyes. "See, you're forgetting about _my_ brother. But that's okay. Everyone always forgets about my brother."

"Is your brother even in the Justice League anymore?" asked Chris.

"Yep," replied Milagro. "He definitely is."

"I don't think my dad's in the Justice League," said Maxine, thinking hard.

"He's reserve," said Damian, picking up a card from Community Chest. "I've read the file. He seems very capable."

"He is," replied Maxine, sounding pleased.

"Wait," said Lian, raising an eyebrow at Damian. "You've read our files?"

"Your parent's files," answered Damian, his mouth full of popcorn. "Or other such relation, as it is," he added, nodding at Milagro. "Don't worry, there was nothing extremely groundbreaking. I think Batman insinuates he knows so much more than he does, and that's _really_ what scares people." He paused, then added, "But that doesn't leave this room."

"Sometimes I wonder why your dad even lets you hang out with us at all," said Iris, laying her head on his shoulder. "You always spill all his secrets when you're here."

Damian turned, and their lips touched in a short kiss. "Where else do I get to gossip about my own family?" he asked her, a smirk playing on his lips. "He's got the whole damn Manor tapped."

"Really?" asked Iris, raising an eyebrow. "The whole thing?"

"Well," Damian murmured in reply, "we could _probably_ find some place…"

"Dude," said Jai loudly, interrupting their flirting. He stared at Damian, half incredulously, half disgusted. "That's my _sister_."

Iris giggled and threw a handful of popcorn at her brother. "Hush. We're just kidding around."

"Yeah right," said Lian, rolling her eyes. "You guys are like the new Starfire and Nightwing of the Titans."

Damian's eyebrow arched elegantly. "And what is _that_ supposed to mean?"

"It means you're the sexiest," said Milagro, sounding amused. "It also means that Iris needs to wear fewer clothes, and Damian, you've got to be like at least ten times more fabulous."

"Iris wears enough clothes as is, thank you," said Jai defensively. "If you ask me, Starfire shows a little too much for her own good."

"Well, I don't know," said Maxine fairly. "She's really, really nice. I don't really think it matters what she wears, as long as she's still so nice."

"Yeah," said Sin, slightly protectively. "A lady superhero can wear whatever she wants, Jai. Don't judge."

"Right," said Jai, almost rolling his eyes. "What do you think, Chris?"

Chris blinked, looking around at them all. "Well, gee..." he began. "I don't actually know who this Starfire is, so I'm not quite fit to judge on that. And I wasn't aware of any necessary degree of, um, _fabulousness_ when I was Nightwing, so..."

"Oh, yeah," said Milagro. "You were Nightwing. I always forget that."

"Me too," added Sin, sounding a little ashamed.

"I think we all do, sometimes," said Damian, with a grave finality. "We apologize, Chris. Will you forgive us?"

Chris shrugged. "What for?" he asked, smiling graciously. "Now come on – whose turn is it?"

It was dark, and the rest of the Titans were gone. Chris and Maxine headed back home. Damian knew that Maxine spent most nights at home because she was still pretty young and her parents worried if she was away from home for too long, and that Chris had accompanied her back and then headed out to spend some time with his folks. It was likely that he'd be gone for the rest of the weekend. Lian and Sin both slept at the Tower; initially, Lian's father had insisted she split her time between the Titans and home on the weekends, but she'd worn him down eventually. Milagro was also asleep at the Tower, but ready to be woken at any moment in the event of a crisis: a Green Lantern's duty never ceased. Jai was in his room, which was bigger and filled with more tech than the others' – as well as right next to Iris's room. Which slightly irritated Damian, but not too much because he had his own _floor_ to himself. Milagro still occasionally teased him about how antisocial that was, but he'd learned to ignore her long ago.

Damian and Iris were alone on his deck, locked in an embrace, their mouths colliding. She pulled away slightly, and he moved his mouth to her neck, kissing her gently there. "Damian?" she breathed, her arms tightly around his back.

"Mmm?" he replied, his teeth gently pressed against her skin, his mouth stretching slightly into a grin.

She took a deep, shuddering breath and then asked, "Will you check me?"

Damian stopped and abruptly pulled away.

She smiled sweetly at him. "Please?"

He let out a disappointed sigh, then got up. "Of course," he said. "But I didn't feel anything."

"You never do," she said cheerfully, watching as he knelt down and pulled some equipment off of a shelf. "Not until I phase out, that is."

"That's only happened _once_."

"It's happened three times now," she reminded him pointedly. "I've been counting."

He wrapped a band around her upper arm, not unlike one to measure blood pressure. "Yes, well," he muttered, pressing two fingers to her inner wrist, "you've only gone through _me_ once."

She snorted. "Yeah, and _that_ was romantic. You could've exploded."

"I didn't."

"I'd never let anything bad happen to you, baby." She reached up and kissed his lips. He didn't even change his long-suffering expression. "I'd never hurt you."

"Whatever you say," he sighed, watching a clock. "Shouldn't your brother be doing this?"

"I felt fine when he went to bed," she said, as the gadget attached to her armband beeped and Damian let go of her wrist. "But, I mean...you know I can't help it when I'm around you."

She smiled at him, and Damian almost rolled his eyes, then took a look at the machine hooked up to her armband. "Yeah," he said. "You're moving."

"How much?"

"Almost ten yoctometers," he answered. "That's why I can't feel it. Your subatomic particles are speeding up."

She sank into the soft loveseat. "That's not too much, is it?"

"No, not much at all," he replied, sitting down beside her, an arm around her shoulders. "But you should be able to control it."

"I can control it," she said defensively. "It just takes so much concentration."

"Exactly," he said, nodding his head. "Which is what makes this so dangerous."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Makes _what_ dangerous?"

"You know," he continued, shrugging slightly. "Us. Together like this."

She looked at him carefully for a moment, something almost like pity in her eyes. Then she pulled him close, leaning her head on his chest. "There's nothing dangerous about a boy and a girl falling in love," she said quietly.

He actually laughed. "Oh, Irey," he said, pulling away from her slightly. He pointed at himself. "Son of the Batman." He pointed at her. "Daughter of the Flash." Motioning to the room at large, he said, "Crime-fighting team of teenage superheroes." He almost smirked. "We're the definition of dangerous."

"But if you forget about all that for a second-"

"Shush." He put a finger to her lips. "Second of all," he continued, "you _know_ your speed is triggered when you're – stimulated..."

"You mean horny," she said, batting his hand away. "You can just say it, Damian. Horny. It's not a dirty word."

"Classy as ever, my darling."

"Oh, you love me."

"I don't know why," he said, with a knowing smile. And then he picked up the handheld machine again and held out his hand. She offered her wrist, and Damian said, "Alright. Deep breaths. Focus." After a moment, he asked, "Can you feel it?"

Her eyes closed, she said, "Yeah. I feel it."

He glanced at the reading, then looked up. "You're fine," he said. "Your body's functioning at normal speed. Now it's just your brain that's going extra fast."

She wrapped her arms around his chest. "Does this mean I have to go to bed now?"

"Well..." he began, but just at that moment a familiar beeping sound came from the communicator on the table before them. They both looked at it, then at each other, then Damian leaned forward to grab it, despite Iris trying to hold him down tightly.

"Dami..." she whined, as he hit a button.

Damian's face darkened as he answered, "Robin." A pause, and then, "I thought Batgirl was covering," he said. Iris pulled away slightly. "Well, wasn't Red Robin supposed to be back by now?" He rubbed his temple, clearly upset. He lowered his voice slightly, continuing, "I asked for this, Dick. I asked for _one _night. It's not my responsibility to pick up their-" he stopped abruptly. Then, sounding irritated he said, "Alright, alright. I get it. I'm on my way."

He closed the communicator and stood up. He looked at her and she said, "Yeah, I know. Sorry about keeping you up today. If I'd had known you'd be on patrol tonight, I'd've at least insisted you take a nap or something."

"I appreciate the thought," he said, pulling a clean uniform out of his closet and stripping off his civilian clothes. Iris smirked slightly. "I'd stay if I could."

"Oh, I know you would," she said sounding amused, watching him tug on his uniform, the armored material clinging to his slim body. "Think you'll be back tomorrow?"

"Hopefully," he answered, putting on his boots. "It's not like you really need me, though."

"_Well_," said Iris fairly. "I kind of like having you around."

He didn't look at her, but she could see the smile on his face.

"I'll give the team your love," she added, as he finished lacing his boots and pulled on his gloves. "I'll call you."

"Not on patrol again," he replied. "I got in trouble for that."

"If you could encrypt your commlinks right then nobody would have known."

"You asked me what I was wearing."

With a straight face, she asked, "So?"

He shook his head at her. "Batman was _right there_."

She giggled. "Worth it." He clipped his utility belt around his waist and she asked, "So what's the emergency tonight, Robin?"

"Breakout at Arkham," he answered. "The usual."

"And Papa Bats can't just take care of it?"

"My father's off planet right now," he said. "Which your father knows."

"Hey, my dad doesn't tell me everything," she replied. "So Nightwing's on duty tonight?"

"Nightwing and me, apparently." He headed towards the garage. "I'll see you later, Iris."

She reached out and caught him by the arm. "Wait," she said, and she kissed him on the lips.

For a long moment, they stood there. Damian circled her arms around her waist, and she ran her fingers through his hair as she kissed him deeply.

And then they broke apart. Their eyes met for a moment, and they both heard the words they didn't have to say.

"Stay safe," she said quietly, smoothing his collar. He bowed his head slightly.

"For you, beloved," he said, and then he turned and swept away, to the Batplane in the garage. Iris lingered there without him for a moment longer, then headed upstairs to her own bedroom.

She walked slowly, concentrating on keeping herself slow. Her powers had always been weird – rapidly aging on an alternate Earth does that to you – but lately they'd been acting stranger than ever. She and her brother had only just succeeded in convincing their parents to let him spend his weekends at the Tower with her. His power were gone, his link to the Speed Force siphoned by Iris years ago. But he was the world's leading expert in xenotechnology, after their mother, and Iris wasn't about to get her teenage-superheroing license revoked by her parents just because her powers started going a little freaky. Jai spent his time monitoring his sister, running tests on her, trying to stabilize her. Her body naturally wanted to speed up, but she could hold herself back, if she just focused enough. But, like her father, she found it difficult to concentrate when her mind was speeding on ahead.

Her attention entirely on trying to keep herself still, she didn't notice someone step out of the shadows as she headed to her room. A hand brushed against her arm and she jumped, loosing concentration, flickering slightly as her movement spiked, then Her slowly calmed again. "Jeez, Lian," said Iris, looking at the other girl. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry," said Lian, a smile on her face. "I heard somebody coming up, I didn't know it was you. Where's Damian?"

"He had to leave," replied Iris, shaking her head slightly. "You know, Gotham emergency and all."

"Oh," said Lian insincerely. "That's too bad."

"Right," said Iris, Lian's infectious grin spreading to her own mouth. "You seem real cut up about it."

Lian shrugged unabashedly. "I don't like him, Irey," she said. "You know that."

"If you just tried to get to know him-"

"I'd find out he's even more of a jerk than I thought?"

"No," said Iris defensively. "He's complicated."

"He's arrogant."

"You just don't like people."

"I like a lot of people."

"You just don't like the people I like."

Lian considered this for a moment, then shrugged. "That's probably close enough to the truth." Then she tugged Iris down the hall gently. "Now come on. Get to sleep. Back to our day jobs tomorrow."

Iris laughed quietly. "This is the life, isn't it?" she asked. "We're Teen Titans. How cool is that?"

Lian's scrutinized her friend softly, then said, "Pretty cool."

They reached Iris's room, and she thumbed the keypad to open the door. "Well," she began, yawning. "Sweet dreams. Love you, goodnight."

The door closed. It was silent in the dark hallway. Lian took a deep breath and then reached out, touching the keypad where the other girl's fingers had been and, so quietly, she murmured, "...I love you too, Iris."

Gotham City, when Damian arrived, was quiet. Unlike he supposed it should have been, considering how Arkham had just had yet _another_ breakout. The place was useless.

He met Dick in the Bunker. Now that he was working with his father, they generally worked out of the Cave, but Dick didn't like going all the way out there. He said it was too far away from the real city, where they needed to be. Damian understood this, but he thought it was better to stay a little removed from the rest of the population. The Manor provided more room for thought, unclouded by the grime and infection of the inner city.

But it was there Dick asked to meet him, and Damian obliged, running his bike into the Bunker. "Grayson!" he called, pulling off his helmet. "I'm here!"

Dick's voice returned the call. "Damian! Good timing." Damian headed up to the computer, where Dick was standing, in his bright red Nightwing suit, with Alfred. It had been a few years since Dick went back to Nightwing, but Damian still didn't like the red suit. Red didn't suit him, not like the blue used to.

Alfred held out a platter of biscuits. Damian took one. "So who is it? Joker? Two Face?" Damian grimaced and asked, "Professor Pyg?"

"No," replied Dick, "thank God."  
"Then who?" he asked. "What have we got here?"

Dick typed a few words into the computer, and a familiar file appeared on the screen. "Mister Zsasz," he said gravely. "Huntress has been alerted, but she's only taking defensive measures. Batgirl was sent out to engage about twenty minutes ago-"

"Batgirl?" asked Damian. "Did you send her out?"

Dick seemed a little taken aback at his aggression. "Yeah, I did-"

"You idiot, _no,_" he groaned, then he grabbed the headphones from the control panel, and brought the mouthpiece to his lips. "Batgirl, do you copy? Do not engage, do _not _go after him alone, what's your location, I'm coming to join you." There was silence on the other end. "Stephanie!" he said. "Steph, can you hear me?"

Nothing.

Damian looked at Dick, then headed back to his bike. "I'll get her."

"I'll go after Zsasz."

"No," said Damian, turning back to him. "You'll wait."

"I think I can handle-"

"It doesn't matter," said Damian. "Wait for me."

"I don't think-"

Damian's bike revved, and he took off.

Dick sighed, unable to keep a grin on his face. "Kids," he said fondly, glancing at Alfred. "They grow up so fast."

Stephanie's tracking signal led Damian to a richer part of the inner city, the kind of place your average psychopaths usually avoided. He stopped the bike. It was dark and silent; he turned the infrared on his mask on and glanced around. Nothing. No Batgirl.

He stood on the exact location where Stephanie's signal had led him. He turned off infrared and peered down at the ground. A small chip lay there, clearly having been torn out of a costume. His body tensed, and just as he raised his head to look around again, something hit him squarely in the torso, bowling him over. Without even needing to see his attacker, he countered with a firm kick to the chest, knocking whoever it was off of him.

He got to his feet, taking a deep breath. He felt a stinging pain on his side, and met the gaze of his attacker. "Zsasz," he said.

"What a pleasure it will be," hissed the man. "To carve up your pretty little body."

"What did you do to Batgirl?" demanded Damian.

Zsasz only grinned and lunged forward again; Damian dodged and flipped, a move Dick had taught him, and then his legs curled around Zsasz's arms, immobilizing him, and his arms were around Zsasz's neck; a slight shift, and he could break his neck. "Where – is – _Batgirl?_"

The scarred man slipped a knife out of his sleeve and plunged it into Damian's ankle. Damian let out a little grunt of pain, and Zsasz took advantage of his moment of weakness to throw the boy off of him, and instantly his knee was on Damian's chest, pushing down hard. Damian felt a rib crack, and he coughed, and then the weight was gone, but it wasn't. Zsasz was no longer on top of him, but there were two new wounds down his sides, and they were deep, and Damian was bleeding and his chest felt like it had caved in and –

Damian stood up. "_Stupid, stupid_…" he muttered under his breath, cursing himself. He glanced around him, then spotted Zsasz on the rooftops above him. Ignoring his pain, he scaled a building, keeping the other man within sight. "Nightwing, come in," he said into his commlink, pulling something out of his utility belt. "I'm tailing Zsasz but I need serious back-up, repeat, I need back-up…"

There was no answer. Damian let out a frustrated sigh, then threw the line he'd pulled out of his belt; it caught Zsasz's leg as he leapt from the ledge, but then it dug into an open wound on Damian's hand and he flinched and the line tugged, and suddenly he fumbled his grip, his eyes went wide and he dived but – but he couldn't –

Suddenly, every wound on his body exploded with pain, and his throat felt full of blood, muffling his cries, and then sweet, slow relief as the pain trickled away from him, leached away by the darkness as his eyes slowly closed, and he grew still.


	2. Break the embraces

**Chapter Two: "Break the embraces"**

_"The greater the love, the more false to its object,  
Not to be born is the best for man;  
After the kiss comes the impulse to throttle,  
Break the embraces, dance while you can."  
_-W.H. Auden, from "Death's Echo"

Wally West stood in his kitchen, waiting for the eggs to cook and the toast to pop up. He usually hated waiting, but right now he didn't mind – he'd learned a long time ago to treasure the moments he had alone with his wife, and the kids were at the Tower for the weekend, leaving them alone together.

"Minor disaster in New York," called Linda, sipping orange juice as she watched the news on the television. "Looks like you could – oh, nevermind, Superman's got it."

"Good," answered Wally, as the toast finally finished. "I deserve some time off to spend with my beautiful wife, right?"

Linda smiled and put her arms around her husband. "Mmm. I'm sure you do, lover."

He kissed her on the lips, savoring the moment. He rarely stood still, but in her arms he could do nothing but.

And then she pulled away, a sudden frown on her face. "What?" he asked, tugging her in again gently. "What is it?"

She let go of him, heading back towards the television. "Oh my God," she said.

Wally followed her gaze and fell silent as the report played out.

"-_youngest son of Gothamite billionaire and Batman, Incorporated CEO Bruce Wayne, was hospitalized early this morning, reportedly in critical condition. Mister Wayne, currently overseas for a business venture, was unavailable for comment, but-"_

"Hospitalized?" echoed Wally. "_Damian?_ God. It's gotta be bad."

Linda looked at her husband. "Do you think Irey's heard yet?"

Wally didn't answer right away, then said, "I'll go get her if-"

"Go."

The man nodded, and a few moments later he was at Titans Tower; he entered his security code, not wanting to set off any unnecessary alarms, then found Iris in the kitchen, , a plate of pancakes before her. "Dad," she said, sounding surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Hi Lian, hi Sin," said Wally, waving at the other two girls who were sitting at the table. Sin said, "Good morning, Mister West," but Lian didn't reply. Addressing Iris, he continued, "Hon, have you heard from Damian?"

"What?" she asked, frowning slightly. "No, I haven't talked to him since he left. Why?"

"You wanna come home for a second?"

"I – why? What's going on?"

"Please. We'll talk when we get home."

The door opened and, yawning, Jai entered the room. He stopped when he saw his father. He paused, then said, "Um…what?"

"Jai, we're gonna go home," said Iris, sounding slightly frightened. "I'll see you guys later," she said to Lian and Sin.

"'Bye…" said Sin, but they were already gone, and then they were back at the West's home in Keystone. Jai was slightly unsteady on his feet, as he always was after Iris pulled him while she ran. Their connection was such that she could drag him along anywhere if she wanted, but it left him a little queasy.

Linda took hold of her son, and he leaned on her as he steadied himself, then she said, "Irey, honey, I don't know if you heard but-"

"Dad said something about Damian," she replied, concern but no fear in her voice. "What happened?"

Linda and Wally exchanged looks, then she said gently, "It sounds like he got hurt, baby."

"What?" asked Iris.

"Here," said Wally. "Look."

He nodded towards the television, which had been muted. But now Dick Grayson was on the screen, and with a click of a button his voice filled the room.

"-_is now out of surgery and in a more stable condition. On behalf of my family, I would like to thank you all for your well-wishes and ask that you keep Damian in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you." _He nodded and ducked away from the cameras; Iris caught a glimpse of Alfred leading him away before the scene cut to reporters again.

"_Details of the horrific incident have not yet been released_," said a woman into the camera, "_but sources close to the Waynes have suggested that the youngest of the Wayne children's injuries may have been the result of an illegal joyride while under the influence. This could seriously affect the reputation of the Waynes, who are known to strongly support many anti-drinking and anti-drug programs throughout the country. Timothy Wayne, second adopted son of Bruce Wayne and the family's most vocal supporter of these programs, was also unavailable for_-"

The phone rang. Wally picked it up. "Hello?"

Iris was staring at the television, a hand over her mouth. Jai stepped towards her and embraced her. Numbly, she returned the hug. Linda reached out and gently stroked her daughter's hair. "You heard Dick," she said. "He's stable now."

"_More_ stable, he said," Iris replied. "That doesn't…I mean…"

"I'm sure he's okay," said Jai, pulling away, holding her hands. "This is Damian we're talking about. Of course he's okay."

Wally held out the phone to Iris. "It's Dick," he said. The red-haired girl took the phone from her father, shaking slightly. Jai tightened his grip on her wrist, and she breathed deeply, keeping her concentration.

"Dick?"

"Hi, Irey," came his familiar voice, sounding tired. "I am so sorry, I should have contacted you earlier. I didn't want you to find out from the news."

"It's okay," she replied, sounding meek but collected. "How is he?"

"Breathing on his own," said Dick. "Thank God. He just got out of surgery. They're saying he'll be okay."

"Is he awake?"

"No."

"When will he be?"

Dick didn't reply right away. And then he said, "I don't know, Iris."

She closed her eyes, took a breath, and then opened her eyes again. "What happened?"

"We're not sure yet. Needless to say, he wasn't drunk driving. I know that's what the press is saying."

"Of course. I know."

There was a silence. And then Dick said, "Listen, he's in Gotham Mercy right now, private room two-two-one. We'll be here, if you want to see him." He paused, then added, "He'd want you to be here."

"Yeah. Thank you, Dick. Let him…let him know I'm coming."

"I will. Take care, Iris."

"You too. See you soon."

"'Bye."

She hung up. "What'd he say?" asked Jai.

"Not much," she told him. "Mom, Dad, Dick said he's at Gotham Mercy Hospital, room two-twenty-one and that I could come whenever. Please, can I…?"

Wally hesitated. "Don't you think it'd be better if you wait-"

"Go ahead, hon," said Linda soothingly. "Do you want us to come?"

"That's okay," she said. "Thanks, Mom."

"Of course. Don't forget to call if you stay more than an hour."

"I will." She turned to her brother. "Will you tell everybody?"

"Sure. If they haven't heard already."

"Don't tell me if they don't care."

"I won't." They hugged one more time. "We're all there for him. And we're always here for you too, if you need us."

"I know. I'll give him a hug for you."

"Right. He'll appreciate that, I'm sure."

There was a smile on her face, and she said, "I'll be home soon," and then she was gone.

The hospital room in which Damian lay was silent, except for the quiet buzz of the equipment attached to his arm. Alfred sat beside the child's bed; he held a familiar, worn book in his lap. Dick was standing, leaning against the wall. "This isn't like him," he insisted. "He wouldn't have let the situation get so out of hand. He's smarter than that."

"Sometimes," replied Alfred, "it's simply unavoidable. Surely he made a simple mistake, one which he will be very angry about once he wakes up. It happens to the best of us."

"No," said Dick firmly. "Not to Damian. After all the training he's been through? The injuries, sure, I can understand. But what happened to Zsasz? No. Couldn't have been Damian."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not."

"Oh, don't give me that. You know him. He's been through enough to know the limit."

"He may not have had a choice."

"He's _better_ than that."

"It could have been an accident."

"No!"

Alfred looked up at Dick, who retreated slightly, realizing how loudly he had raised his voice.

"Sorry," he said roughly. "I didn't mean to yell. It's just that…this is really frustrating. I hate waiting. I need him to wake up. Now."

There was a short silence. "Perhaps Miss West will be able to rouse him," Alfred noted, glancing at the clock. "She should be here very soon, yes?"

"Yeah," came a third voice, and suddenly there she was, long red hair and green eyes just like her father. She looked at Alfred, then Damian, then Dick, then she raised her arms slightly and Dick rushed forward and put his arms around her.

"Shh," he whispered. "It's okay, Irey. He's fine. He's perfectly fine."

She pulled away, nodding. "I know," she said. "Damian's too stubborn to let some criminal lowlife get the best of him. I know he'll be okay." She looked at the boy, at all the tubes connected to his arm and his mouth and nose. She took a step towards him and took his hand, reaching a gentle hand out to brush his dark hair across his forehead. "It's just weird," she said, her voice strong. "To see him so vulnerable, you know? He's so strong all the time, so in control." She almost smiled. "He'd hate to know I saw him like this."

"On the contrary, Miss West," intoned Alfred, "I think he would be comforted to know that you were here for him."

Iris briefly met Alfred's gaze gratefully, her fingers still brushing through the boy's hair. "Who found him?"

"Batgirl," replied Dick. "She was on Zsasz's trail. Somehow Damian just got to him first."

"He knows how Zsasz works," Iris said, gazing at his bruised face. "He'd know where to find him."

There was a short silence. And then Dick said, "Zsasz is dead."

Iris didn't even look up. "He'll be angry about that," she said softly.

No one said anything.

And then Iris asked quietly, "Could I have a moment alone with him?"

"Of course," said Alfred, standing. "We'll be just outside." He headed out of the room, glancing back at Dick, who followed without complaint.

Iris waited until the door closed, then glanced behind her. She was alone. Her heart pumping, she took hold on Damian's wrist, her fingers finding his pulse. Then she took a deep breath, and concentrated, holding his wrist tightly.

And suddenly, she felt it flooding through her, and his pulse spiked, sending the machines attached to him into a loud, beeping frenzy. "Oh, _shit_," she whispered, breaking the connection, hoping that his heart would slow down quickly; luckily it did, and the machines returned to normal, and then, suddenly, with a loud, gasping breath, he opened his eyes wide.

For a moment, he looked alarmed, but then he saw her and his breathing calmed, and his brow knitted into an expression of concern. He reached up and pulled a tube out of his throat and another from his nose, then coughed hoarsely and rubbed his chest gently.

"Jesus," he said. "Did a _horse_ just kick me in the chest?"

She smiled innocently. "Not quite."

He stared at her for a moment, then his signature smug expression returned. "Right," he said thoughtfully. "You're more like a _cow_ than a horse."

She giggled and gently punched him in the arm. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Jerk Wonder. Other than the defibrillator burn, how are you feeling?"

"Adequate," he said cautiously. "Some bruising, it feels, nothing more." He paused, then asked, "Defibrillator?"

She shrugged. "It's essentially the same thing."

"The same as what?"

She paused, then laughed. "You know, it doesn't matter," she said. "I'm just really happy that you're okay."

"You woke me up?" asked Damian, sounding at first incredulous, then angry. "You sent my heart into overdrive and _woke me up?_"

"It wasn't just your heart," she replied, offended. "Your entire body. I fixed up most of your major internal injuries. Well, technically you did that. I just gave you the juice."

He gaped at her. "You did _what?_"

"I connected you to the Speed Force," she sighed, as if relenting her resistance and confessing her crime to him. "Just for a second! Don't worry, it wasn't enough to slow anyone else down. Just enough to boost your biological processes a tad."

His anger flashed in his eyes. "That's not okay, Iris," he said, his voice burning. "You could've just _waited_ a few hours for me to wake up on my own."

"Why?" she demanded. "I could make you better, so I did. You should be thanking me. This way you'll be able to get back to work sooner."

"That doesn't matter! Your connection to the Speed Force is shaky as is-"

"Oh, that is a bald-faced _lie_. My connection to the Speed Force is stronger than-"

"There's too much of a risk. I never want to-"

"Get over it, Damian, I was just trying to help you out-"

"I don't want your help!"

She recoiled slightly. His biting words echoed in the ringing silence.

His voice slightly lowered, he continued, "I don't want you to fix me, Iris. I don't want that."

Iris blinked, then nodded. "Okay," she said. "I respect that. I'm sorry. I was just really worried. I shouldn't have done it without your permission."

"Thank you," said Damian. He paused, then said, "And thanks for worrying, too. I appreciate that."

She smiled at him, then leaned in and ran her hands through his hair, their lips meeting, exchanging a quick but powerful kiss.

Pulling away, he asked, "So what happened?"

"What do you mean?" she asked. "How'd you get here?" He nodded. "I'm not sure exactly," she replied. "You were with me at the Tower, and then you had to leave because of a breakout at Arkham, as usual, and then Dick said something about you going after Mister Zsasz, and then Batgirl found you." She eyed him suspiciously. "Speaking of Batgirl, we may have to have a discussion about her."

"Let's forgo that, and I'll just introduce you to her sometime," he said. "She's surprisingly charming, actually. For a plebian."

Iris chuckled. "That's quite the compliment, for you." She leaned in again, her face close to his. "When have you ever said something that nice about me?"

"Well," he said lowly, as she sat halfway on the bed and their foreheads touched, "let's see." He kissed her. "You're amazing." Another kiss. "And intelligent." Another. "And sexy." Once more. "And the most beautiful woman on the face of this or any other planet."

"Right back 'atcha, hot shot," she murmured, returning the kisses and leaning into him. His hand ran down her arm, and she held him close, and then suddenly-

"_Ow_ – oh, God, Irey, can you just – oh, Jesus-"

Iris pulled away as a small strip of the right side of his hospital gown was slowly stained red. "Oops," she said. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't realize your wounds were so – ah, I thought that would've been healed. Can I-"

"No," said Damian firmly. "Regular medicine this time."

Iris paused, then nodded. "Sure," she said. "If you say so." She opened the door to find Dick and Alfred waiting just outside the room. "Hi," she said, "can we get a doctor in here?"

"Did he wake up?" asked Dick urgently. "We thought we heard his-"

"Yes, I'm awake," called Damian impatiently. "Fetch me a doctor now, please, before I bleed out."

"It's just some busted stitches," said Iris, rolling his eyes affectionately. "I think you'll be okay."

"You don't know that," replied Damian. "What if I die and the last thing you've ever said to me was _I think you'll be okay_?"

"Then you'll have proved me wrong," she said, kissing him on the forehead. "Finally."

There was a pause, then Damian said, "You should go. People will question why you're here. The Waynes don't know the Wests, remember."

"I know," she said. "Feel better. I'll drop by when I can."

"I'll let you know when I return to the Manor."

She looked at Dick. "Thank you for letting me know," she said.

"Thank you for waking him up," said Dick, sounding impressed. "What'd you do?"

She smiled, looking at Damian. "Oh, you know how teenage boys are. Getting too close to a pretty girl gets them all riled up."

Dick laughed. "You really are your parents' daughter, Irey."

"So I've been told. Give my best to Alfred. I'll tell Jai and the others just how much you _adore_ them, Dami."  
"Remind Milly that I loathe her," he replied casually, still holding his bleeding wound. With a laugh, Iris was gone.

His injuries suddenly, miraculously better, Damian was released from the hospital by sundown. Dick helped him into the car, and Alfred drove back to the Manor, ignoring the reporters desperately pressing for information. Just outside the city limits, Dick finally spoke, breaking the long silence.

"So," he began, glancing at Damian, whose face was pressed to the window, a cloud of condensation on the glass around his forehead. "Now that we've got a moment alone, you want to tell us what happened?"

Damian didn't answer right away. And then he lifted his face from the glass and said, "There's not much to tell. From what Iris said I assumed you knew about as much as I do."

"You were supposed to go after Stephanie," said Dick. "I was waiting to confront Zsasz with you. What happened?"

"Her signal led me straight to him," answered Damian. "I suspect it was a trap. If I may be so bold, Zsasz has had it out for me since what Abuse and I did to his child-baiting ring."

For a moment, Dick said nothing, and then quietly: "Well. I guess we don't have to worry about that anymore."

There was a slight physical shift in Damian's entire body. He went stiff and rigid, and his eyes became hard. "I didn't really expect him to survive that fall," he said quietly. "We were at least twelve stories up."  
No reply. The car jolted gently, going over a pothole in the road.

"I thought we were past this," said Dick quietly.

"Past what?" asked Damian, sounding bored and leaning his head against the window again. "I know what you're thinking. But my line slipped when I was attacked and I saw him fall. I tried to save him but I couldn't. Something was beating the living daylights out of me."

"What was it?" asked Dick. "That attacked you, I mean."

Damian took a long, slow breath. "I don't know," he admitted. "I don't remember much. I just know that I couldn't see it, and it tore me apart."

"Clearly not so badly that your girlfriend couldn't wake you up," added Dick, almost playfully. "What'd she even do to you? The doctors said you'd be out for a couple more hours at least. What went down?"

"Nothing," replied Damian.

"Aw, come on," said Dick. "You know you can tell me. Whatever it was."

"It was nothing," said Damian curtly, with the sort of finality that always made him sound like his father. "She and I…we have something of a connection. That's all."

"Yeah," murmured Dick, grinning. "I bet."

"Oh, shut _up_," growled Damian, glowering at Dick. "She helped me just by _being_ there. That's all."

"Right, right," he said. "I'm sure it had nothing to do with the torn stitches or anything, right?"

Damian didn't even reply, only rolled his eye and looked out the window as they pulled up to the Manor.

"I can't blame you," sighed Dick. "I can't tell you how many times I've gotten it on right there in the hospital-"

The car hadn't even completely stopped moving as Damian opened the door and got out, heading to the front door. Dick chuckled. "Was it something I said?" he asked Alfred innocently.

"I will tell you not for the first time, Master Richard," replied Alfred, striding towards the open front door. "You do tend to overshare."

"Of course I do," called Dick after them. "I quip! It's charming!"

That same night, Iris returned to the Titans Tower with Jai, where Lian, Sin, Milagro and Chris were waiting. Chris and Sin were sitting in front of the television, mostly flipping through news coverage, whereas Lian and Milagro were in the kitchen, snacking on Cocoa Puffs and working on a crossword puzzle. When the twins entered the Tower, Sin looked up and her eyes brightened. "Jai!" she called, then she sank back into the couch, her face turning slightly pink.

Jai murmured something in reply, also turning pink, and went to sit by her as Chris looked around. "Have you seen Damian?" he asked, sounding concerned. "They're saying-"

"Really, you're going to trust the _news_ on this one?"

Chris looked hurt. "Sorry, I just – I mean, I didn't know what else-"

Iris took a deep breath and brushed her hair out of her face. "I know," she said, sounding much calmer. "I know, Chris. I'm just…tired, I suppose."

The Kryptonian nodded silently, then said, "So? Is he okay? What happened?"

"He's fine," replied Iris. "I bet he'll be home by tonight, and back in action as soon as his dad lets him. Or maybe even before. He mentioned something about Batman being off-world right now."

"Yeah," agreed Chris, nodding. "He's with my…with Superman."

"Do you know when they'll be back?"

Chris shrugged. "Soon, probably. It's not like they'd leave Earth unprotected for long."

"It's not unprotected," said Sin. "There are other heroes."

"Yeah," said Chris, "but not like Superman and Batman."

"Well," began Jai. "I don't know about that. My dad is really-"

Ignoring their conversation, Iris entered the kitchen. Milagro sat at the table, pen in hand, crossword puzzle before her. Lian was poking around the fridge. "Leader of India after independence," said Milagro out loud, without glancing up at Iris. "Five across."

"Nehru," replied Lian, pouring herself a glass of fruit juice. "First Prime Minister of independent India."

"Jeez," muttered Milagro, writing it down. "How do you know all this stuff?"

"I read," said Lian, sounding amused. "Besides," she added. "India is an interesting place."

Milagro grumbled a little more, and Iris had to suppress a smile. Taking a sip of her juice, Lian glanced at Iris and winked, and she could no longer hold back her smile.

"Glad to see you back, Irey," said Lian. "I was worried when your dad picked you up this morning."

"I'm okay," said Iris. "Damian just got hurt, that's all."

Lian opened her mouth as if to say something, then shut it again. But then Milagro spoke for her: "What happened? Some low-life Gothamite gangster get sick of the kid's stupid cracks and shoot him in the face?"

"No, Milly, not quite."

"Aw, that's a damn shame."

"You know I think you've been hanging out with Guy Gardner a little too much."

"Agreed," said Lian, but then she strode over to Iris and reached out and put her arm around her. "But I think _you've_ been spending a little too much time with the Brat Boy Wonder, Irey."

"Oh, Lian," sighed Iris. "I don't need to hear this from you again. My best friend hates my boyfriend, boo-hoo. I'm not leaving either of you, so you're just going to have to suck up and take it." Iris pulled Lian into her arms and squeezed tightly, then let go and left the room with a laugh.

Lian stood there for a moment, her legs slightly weak, unsure of herself.

"Let's see," murmured Milagro, peering at the crossword. "Oh, look at that. Four-letter word for the girl with the giant, transparent crush on her best friend."

"Don't start," muttered Lian, turning away from Milagro.

"Oh, this one's easy," continued Milagro. "Come on. You know it."

"Really. Don't."

"Hey, look at that. Your name fits."

"Shut _up_, Milly!"

Sudden silence from outside the kitchen. Milagro met Lian's gaze with something like sincerity. "I'm not making fun of you," she said, her voice hushed.

Lian blinked, then took a deep breath. "I know you're not," she said, her voice calm, almost reserved. "Just…not when she's around."

"Why not? Why don't you just tell her?"

Lian didn't answer for a moment, only stared at the doorway where Iris had left. "It's just…" she paused, "…not the right time."

"Right," said Milagro, following her gaze. "Of course. Whatever helps you sleep at night, Harper."

"Don't condescend to me, Reyes," Lian shot back. "You keep your jaw shut or I break it, okay?"

"Oh, ma'am yes ma'am. Of course. Your threats are just as cute as ever, Arsenal."

"Just be quiet," muttered Lian, rubbing her temple. "You don't understand, Milagro. You think you do. But you don't. You can't."

They fell into a loud, pervading silence as Lian stared vacantly at the spot Iris had left.


	3. Moments of pain

Chapter Three: Moments of pain

_"We draw our lines around these moments of pain, and remain upon our islands, and they cannot hurt us."  
_-Neil Gaiman, American Gods

"And how long has it been?"

"Two days."

"It's been two days since he was released from the hospital, and you've already allowed him to return to patrol?"

"Actually it's been two days since the accident. He was released from the hospital last night."

A muscle in Bruce's jaw jumped. Dick bit back a smug smile. It always amused him to unnerve Bruce, and the man was always so tense about Damian; it was almost too easy to do.

"He was in the OR for four hours," Bruce said lowly. "He could have died."

"He didn't," offered Dick. Bruce only stared at him. Relenting, Dick continued, "Look, I get your concern. Of course I do. But Alfred checked him out this morning and he's absolutely fine. Just a few cuts and bruises, nothing more than we usually get every night."

"The internal injuries alone-"

"-are _healed_," Dick stressed. "We checked. Doctor Thompkins double-checked for us before we took him home."

Bruce glowered at Dick. "That's not possible."

"You know," said Dick seriously. "I'm starting to think it might be."

Bruce looked away, back to the computer, typing some information in. "Why?"

"Well, I've been thinking," he continued, leaning against the back of Bruce's seat. "He's around the right age. Maybe a little old, but hey, some kids are late bloomers."

Without looking up, Bruce asked, "What are you talking about?"

"I'm wondering if Damian might have a metagene," replied Dick clearly. "If so it might be manifesting itself sometime around now. Nothing strong, just some enhanced recovery and maybe a little bit of invulnerability."

"Neither Talia nor I-"

"I know you don't. But he's pretty much just as genetically engineered as biologically. Maybe she tucked a few surprises into his genetic code. Who knows?"

"She didn't."

"We don't know that for sure."

"I do. I checked."

Dick paused, almost suspiciously. "You checked?"

"Years ago."

There was a short silence. And then Dick insisted, "But with all the tinkering she's done, it would still make sense that he heals more-"

"No," interrupted Bruce, "it doesn't."

He pulled the cowl over his head and stood up.

"Go back to New York, Dick," he said. "We're done here."

He turned and swept towards the Batmobile, his cape billowing fearsomely behind him. Dick's cheeks suddenly burned. "Now hold on one second," he said. "What do you mean _we're done here_?"

"I mean," Bruce stopped and turned around, "that in my absence you allowed my son to pursue a dangerous criminal by himself, and that not only did he wind up near fatally injured because of it, but he is the damned near closest he's been to a killer in _years_ now. And you weren't there to hold him back."

Dick blinked, at a loss for words. "What?" he asked, his voice failing slightly. "Are you blaming _me_ for this?"

"I'm noting that your performance was sub-par," Bruce continued levelly. "I expect better of you."

"I'm not going to put a leash on him and follow him wherever he goes, if that's what you want," said Dick belligerently, taking a step towards the older man. "He's old enough to look after himself. You'd know that if you ever gave him an _inch_ of breathing room."

"This was your mistake, Dick. If you're going you make it right you know where to start."

"No," protested Dick. "I don't."

Bruce met the younger man's gaze. "He healed," he said slowly, "completely – miraculously – in a few hours. You're going to find out how. Is that clear?"

Dick bit back a retort. "Guess so," he muttered. "I'll look into it."

Bruce said nothing more; he got into the car, the engines quietly started, and Dick was left alone in the cave, silently seething.

Out in the darkness of the city, Damian Wayne crouched on a rooftop, flanked by two huge stone gargoyles. A muted _whooshing_ noise came from behind him, and without looking up, he muttered, "Come back later. I'm busy."

Christopher Kent alighted onto the roof and took a few steps to stand behind Damian, peering out at the city. Then, ignoring Damian completely, he dived off the building; a minute later he returned. "There," he said. "Crime-free for the next six blocks."

Damian almost sighed in frustration. "What do you want?" he asked gruffly. "What was _so_ urgent that you had to come all the way out here?"

"Nothing much," answered Chris. "I just wanted to see if you were okay, that's all. Impulse said she thought you'd be back in costume by now."

"Uniform, Superboy. Not costume. Uniform."

"If you say so."  
There was a silence. Then Damian glanced around. "What _are_ you doing here?" he asked, almost curiously. "Superman has just returned from a week-long absence. One would assume you'd be spending time with him now."

Chris shrugged. He didn't say anything for a long while. Damian didn't shift his gaze.

Finally, Chris muttered, "Conner's visiting."

Damian turned away from Chris, to look out at the city. "I see," he said.

The sounds of the night filled the air, the space between them. Neither of them said a word.

"When are you coming back to the Tower?" asked Chris.

"I don't know. I think Batman will want to keep me close to home for a while." Damian paused, then, almost smirking, asked, "Why? Miss me?"

"Basically," replied Chris, grinning. "Plus when you're not around, our 'Teen Lantern' finds others to torment. Namely, me."

"Punch her once in a while. She'll respond to that."

"Yeah, that's the unfortunate thing about having a Kryptonian fist, Robin. When I punch humans it sometimes kills them."

There was a pause, and then both boys let out a muffled laugh. "Go away, Superboy," said Damian, amused. "Surely you've got a natural disaster somewhere in the world to tend to."

"Huh, natural disasters. That's more Wonder Woman's territory."

"Goodbye, Superboy."

"'Bye, then, Robin." He turned as if to leave, then stopped. "Hey," he said.

Damian glanced around.

"I'm glad you're okay," Chris said quietly, sincerely, firmly meeting Damian's gaze. And then he disappeared, flying out across and away from the city.

The Titans Tower was mostly empty: Iris and Jai were with their parents, Damian was still in Gotham and Chris was somewhere soaring above the American countryside. Chris never spent too much time at the Tower; he preferred to be in flight, soaking in the power of the sun, savoring the power deep within him. Sin was outside, eyes closed, legs crossed, and Maxine was trying to meditate with her but she couldn't quite get the hang of it. Milagro sat with them on a glowing green deck chair construct, wearing sunglasses and sipping lemonade.

Lian was the only one inside. She glanced out the window, watching the girls on the island, then slunk away to her room without a word.

"Isn't it time for sparring yet?" asked Milagro, finishing her lemonade. "You're boring the pants off me."

"Yeah, shouldn't we be working?" asked Maxine, looking at Sin.

Sin took a deep breath. "We are working," she told them. "It's important to reach an inner balance of peace and violence. You can't have one without the other."

"Yeah, yeah," said Milagro. "Whatever, Flower Child. Will you please fight me now?"

Sin let out a quiet sigh and got to her feet. "Come here, Milly."

Milagro grinned and stood up, the deck chair behind her vanishing. She took a few steps to Sin, her hands behind her back, comically pretending to hide a giant green fist.

Sin looked at her, her hand shot out almost too quick to see, and Milagro collapsed.

"You don't know how to use that ring in close-range combat," Sin said gravely. "Keep your distance."

Maxine gaped at Milagro, who seemed to be unconscious. "What did you do?" she asked incredulously.

"She's fine," said Sin, crouching and slapping the other girl gently across the face. "She'll be better in a second."

True to her word, Milagro let out a little groan and propped herself up on her hands. "What the hell?" she asked, sounding angry. "I didn't say go!"

"The giant boxing glove behind your back said otherwise," answered Sin calmly. "And for the record, don't ever expect your enemy to wait until you say _go_."

Milagro grumbled something, but Maxine said, "Wow, Sin, that's so cool. Can you teach me to do that?"

"No," said Sin bluntly, getting into a fighting stance facing Maxine. "Now it's your turn."

For a second Maxine looked at her blankly, then she grinned. "Okay," she said, "get ready…"

There was an instant change in the little girl – none of them could ever tell exactly what it was or pinpoint exactly when it happened, but when Maxine took the powers of an animal, she _became_ an animal. It was almost frightening, the ferocity with which she charged Sin.

Holding one hand behind her back, Sin dodged Maxine's thundering charge. Maxine changed again and lashed out at Sin with fingers like claws; Sin took hold of her shoulder and elbow lightly and sent her crashing to the ground. Maxine jumped to her feet, her body shaking and rolling, and lashed out quickly, almost at superspeed, then finally caught hold of Sin's wrist; she squeezed, Sin's legs came shooting up and her foot connected with the bottom of the other girl's jaw, but Maxine hardly noticed. She squeezed Sin's wrist tighter even as the other girl jabbed her sharply in the throat, then wrapped her legs around her neck.

Maxine snarled and twisted her hand sharply, and Sin let out a yelping cry at exactly the same time an audible _snap_ came from her wrist.

Another voice suddenly said, "What the hell is going on here?"

In an instant Maxine had let go of her and backed away. Sin cradled her wrist in her good hand, then looked up at the younger girl incredulously. Sin, Maxine and Milagro looked around to see Lian standing a few feet away from them, a fiery look in her eyes.

She stalked up to Maxine and Sin. Addressing the younger girl, she said, "What did you just do to her?"

"I – I'm sorry," said Maxine. "I didn't mean to! It's just that Sin usually kills me when we spar and she's always telling me to push my limits and so I was pushing and I was – I was holding her too tightly, wrapped around her like a boa constrictor, I'm sorry Sin, I'm – I'm sorry…"

Maxine started to cry. Milagro was instantly by her side; for all her toughness, whenever there were tears she was always there, sincere and comforting.

"Sin, are you okay?"

"I think there's something wrong with my wrist."

"Did she break it?"

Sin shrugged, avoiding Lian's gaze. "I think it's crushed, actually."

Lian gaped at her, then turned to Maxine. "You _crushed_-"

"It doesn't matter," said Sin. "She did really great. I didn't even faze her."

They both looked back at Maxine, who was weeping openly. "Well," murmured Lian. "I think she may be a _little_ fazed."

"Don't worry about it," said Sin, passing Lian and reaching out a hand to Maxine. "That was really impressive, Maxy. You're really getting strong."

"I – I _didn't_ want to h-_hurt_ you-"

"I know," said Sin soothingly. "You didn't, not really. We've all been hurt worse."

Milagro hugged Maxine tightly. "I haven't," she added. "I'm a Green Lantern. Nothing hurts me."

"Except for Sin," added Lian.

The Green Lantern shot a glare Lian's way. "Except for Sin," she conceded. "But hey, she's injured now, maybe I have a chance?"

Sin giggled. "I could beat you with _two_ broken hands, Milly."

"Maybe," said Milagro, letting Maxine go. "Maybe not."

Lian looked at all of them, then said, piercing, narrowed eyes focused on the girl with the injured wrist, "Sin was supposed to accompany me tonight back to Star City for a little investigation." She glanced at them all. "The cemetery thing. Remember?"

Sin blinked guiltily. "If you need help," she said earnestly, "I can still-"

"No," said Lian, cutting her off. "It's cancelled. Looks like the job won't get done at all." She turned back towards the Tower, then paused and said sharply, "You'd better hope it's nothing important," and then left, returning inside.

Still holding her wrist gingerly, Sin looked back at Maxine and Milagro and murmured, "Some stupid assignment. I wasn't going anyway."

Lian headed up to her room, coolly fuming. It frustrated her, how easy it was for Sin. The girl was younger than Lian, was still struggling to master _English_ – but she seemed to click so much better with the rest of the group. The group Lian had mostly known since they were kids. And it had only been about two years since Sin had been introduced to the group, and suddenly she was the most important, the favorite, the strongest, the one everybody liked.

It wasn't fair. Lian had been training her whole life for this. Sin had been holed up in an ashram for years prior to joining the team. And yet _Sin_ was the big player, the heavy hitter. Lian had no power, no position. She was an afterthought in the team, and they all knew it and it killed her that she couldn't be like one of them. She hated it. She often thought about quitting the team, but she wouldn't. Of course she wouldn't.

Because of a girl. Because of that stupid tall, lanky girl with bright red hair and freckles. With that infectious laugh and a personality that Lian shouldn't like, Lian _shouldn't_ like – she was too flighty, too precious, she lacked conviction, purpose, perspective. If she were anybody else, Lian would hate her.

But Lian Harper was desperately in love with Iris West, and had been for the past few years. It was one of the reasons she had been so eager to restart the Teen Titans; they rarely spent time together out of uniform, but as a team they began to spend hours together.

Which unfortunately meant hours with Damian as well. Damian Wayne, the privileged, arrogant, angry son of a bitch. Lian couldn't stand him. Or maybe she could've. She could hardly admit it, but at first it had been amusing, and his cynicism was in sync with hers, and they likely could have been friends. Except for the night Iris had made that dreaded damn confession, that she had a crush on a _boy_ and that it was _Robin_, of all people, _Robin_. Lian had felt like she would throw up. Despite her best efforts, Iris and Damian only took a few more months to become a couple, and now they were disgustingly physical all the time. Lian wouldn't even call it affectionate – she hated to see the way Damian treated Iris, the way he held on to her as if she were some possession, the way he kissed her ferociously before they went into a dangerous mission, no matter who saw.

Lian went to the weapons bay and took out a firearm. Nonlethal, but just barely. When Lian became old enough to don a costume and fight crime (much later than she would have liked; she had to _fight_ her father for it, tooth and nail), Mia Dearden had been ready to pass down the title of Speedy. Lian had refused. She sat down, taking the weapon apart and setting a timer. She was Arsenal now, after her father's second title. It fit her better, anyway.

Maxine kept asking Sin if she needed to go to a hospital, but Sin refused; hospitals made her feel anxious, and they had all the supplies they needed in the medical bay. Maxine insisted on tending to Sin's wounds herself, repeating her apology over and over again. At one point Milagro actually created a green-construct gag to shut her up.

Sin and Maxine were the kids of the group, the youngest, but Milagro got along with them. Milagro really got along with everyone, however rough she came across. She had her problems with Damian, yes, but she'd fought under him and she'd seen him in action and she knew he had his heart in the right place. She liked who Damian could be; but he seemed to bury that deep, so nobody could get to him.

Nobody but Iris, it seemed. Milagro saw the way that Damian seemed to melt with her, the way he changed completely under her touch. It was a beautiful thing, and if Damian didn't normally just _irritate_ her so much, then he might be endearing to her.

While in the middle of digging in the freezer for an ice pack to put on Sin's wrist, Milagro's ring went off. "I have to go," she said to Sin and Maxine, her very demeanor transforming instantly. "Emergency. Take care of yourselves."

And then it was just Sin and Maxine left alone. There was a silence, then Maxine said, "Sin?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm really sorry about your hand."

Sin almost laughed. "It's fine," she said. "It'll heal."

"I know," Maxine continued, upset, "but I know how important your hands are to your combat. If I've affected your dexterity or made it harder to-"

"It's _fine_," stressed Sin. She leaned back in her seat, putting her legs up onto the table. "Besides," she said with a grin, "I can always fight with my feet."

In the West household in Keystone City, Iris and Jai sat alone together in the basement. Iris's forearm was in an ominous-looking device, and Jai was monitoring something on the computer. "I don't like this," he said. "You're supposed to be _controlling_ yourself, Irey."

"I am controlling myself!" she protested. "I feel perfectly fine. Aren't I?"

"No," replied Jai. "You're not. You're vibrating way too much."

"How much?"

"Dad would be able to notice, if he really looked at you."

Iris groaned. "What the hell?" she murmured. "I'm focusing just as much as I always have. I don't know what's going on."

There was a silence. And then Jai said, "It's getting worse."

"I know it's getting worse," snapped Iris. "You've been telling me that since-"

"This isn't a warning anymore," interrupted Jai lowly, dangerously. "It's a symptom. Things are _actually_ happening to you, Irey, and if things don't slow down you could…" he trailed off, then turned around to face her. "We could lose you."

She pulled her arm out of the device. "That won't happen," she said matter-of-factly.

"It could."

"It won't."

Jai slid away from the computer, shutting it down. "Maybe we should just tell Mom and Dad about this."

"No," said Iris emphatically.

"But they know a lot more about this than I-"

"_No_. You're the smartest person I know, Jai, you can handle this."

"Sure, but you can't. If you're in danger I'm not going to keep it from our parents. They deserve to know. Besides, maybe they can help you."

Iris sighed and stood up. "I don't need help," she said dismissively, then headed for the stairs. "All I need is for _you_ to stop worrying."

"I'm just saying-"

"No. You're not saying anything." She paused, then said, "Look, Jai, I love you to death and back. You know that. But this is something we have to deal with on our own, okay?" She smiled. "Together."

He stared at her, then shook his head. "Fine," he said. "But if you phase out just _one more time_-"

"Okay, okay, whatever you say," she laughed. "Goodnight, Jai. Thanks for playing mad scientist for me once again."

"No problem, sis," he replied, begrudgingly. "Anytime."

Iris disappeared up the steps, heading to her room.

Milagro returned to the Titans Tower late that night. She had left somewhat of a mess out in space, but as the youngest, the other Lanterns of Earth always wanted to cut her some slack. The sky was almost gray with the first burn of dawn, and the Tower looked warm and inviting. She took a deep breath, for a moment savoring the pride and joy she felt, about to return to the Titans Tower. It always made her feel incredulous, when she stopped and thought about her, that she was a _Green Lantern_, and that she was part of the _Teen Titans_, and that…

Milagro stopped, staring at something on the island's beach. Human-shaped and unmoving, a dozen possibilities ran through her mind, but she acted on the most obvious. If it was a body, she didn't want to wake the others. She'd bring it to the authorities on her own. She wouldn't want Sin to see-

"Oh God," she whispered, her eyes widening as she landed on the shore and recognized the body lying there, the waves lapping at her feet. "Oh, _God_…"

Gingerly she reached out her hand, brushed along cold skin, an icy terror congealing in her stomach..

"Sin," she whispered hoarsely. "Sin, can you hear me?"

At that moment, just outside the limits of Gotham City, Damian Wayne was in his room, exhausted after a night on patrol. His major injuries were healed, yes, but he was still covered in minor cuts and bruises which, at worst, caused him discomfort and fatigue. Out on patrol – with his father – he didn't let it show, but alone in his room he allowed himself a certain degree of relaxation, and he fell onto his bed, intending to read some before he slept, but he couldn't keep his eyes open. His senses grew fuzzy as he drifted towards sleep.

But then there was a strange sensation across his wrist, as if some kind of liquid was slowly trickling down. And then just as quickly, the sting of a sharp, shallow cut across his skin pulsed through him, and without crying out he sat up straight, acutely awake.

He held up his arms. His warm sleeves were stuck against his skin with some dark, ominous liquid. Before he moved, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, forcing his heartbeat to regulate.

And then he peeled back his sleeves, revealing rudimentary red scrapes on his forearms, thin rivulets of blood trickling from the wounds.

He brought his right arm closer to his eyes, inspecting the incisions; he reached out and switched on the lamp next to his bed with his left arm, and a tiny drop of blood fell and landed on the carpet beside the bed, staining it a dark red.

The marks on his right arm could be, if he looked at them right, a word. But it didn't make sense. It didn't seem to have any significance.

He glanced at his left arm, then, eyes widening, raised it level with the right. His interlocked his fingers down to the knuckle, and straightened his forearms, facing him. His eyes slowly traced the lines carved into his arms, a message that had appeared moments ago, dug into his skin.

On his left arm was one word written in blood; on his right another.

_BAGHEERA,_ said his left.

_COMES,_ said the right.


	4. In others' blood

Chapter Four: In others' blood

_"Oh, may the happy man be allowed his suffering  
without getting poked in the face with nettle,  
without being denied his name or the wine,  
without letting him touch another sadness:  
may he throw your soul upon his plate:  
we have a duty to bear with the others  
and to fall down, to ford the river, in others' blood._

_ It is well that the same waters carry us,  
losing us all, defeating us all."  
_-Pablo Neruda, "We Drown"

"Where did you find her?"

"I already said, she was just on the beach, I didn't-"

"Was she in the water?"

"No, not really. I mean, her feet maybe, but not-"

Dinah Lance turned to the man standing up, pacing back and forth in the small room, and said resolutely, "Maybe Arthur knows something."

"Arthur doesn't know anything and you know that," said Oliver, never breaking his stride. "What about the cameras? Shouldn't you have something on the cameras?"

"No," replied Milagro, determinedly holding back tears as Dinah collapsed slightly, dropping her forehead into her hands. "No, everything that would have caught it was disabled. Which is weird – that alone should've set off alarms – I mean, I don't know how any of this could've happened, I just-"

"It's okay, Milagro," said Connor, sitting beside her. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "It's not your fault."

"You know," said Ollie, finally stopping. "I wouldn't say that so soon, son. We don't know what happened."

"I swear, I didn't…" Milagro's composure began to fall apart. "Look, I wasn't even there! Ask Kyle, Connor, he knows, he was with me, ask Guy, ask – ask the ring!"

She held out her hand, as if it were going to suddenly sprout a mouth and explain what had happened. Ollie still looked at her suspiciously, but then Dinah raised her head and said, "Milagro, of course we know it wasn't you. We're not blaming anybody for this." She paused, then added, "Not yet."

Finally, Milagro couldn't hold back her tears. Connor put his arm around her shoulders as she sniffled, "Is she gonna be okay?"

There was an uneasy silence. Ollie looked at the ground, then looked around and stomped out of the room. Dinah closed her eyes and lowered her head again. Connor said nothing.

Dinah finally said, "We'll see when she gets out of surgery," and stood up and left, following Ollie.

Suddenly a loud, angry voice came from outside the room, and Connor glanced at Milagro, who wiped her eyes and nodded, and they followed the voice out.

"No I will not _calm down!_" said Roy Harper loudly, breathlessly. "This is an attack on where you _live_, where you're supposed to be safe! If you're _not_, then – then as a father, I have a responsibility to-"

"To what, take care of me?" came Lian's furious, burning voice. "To keep me out of harm's way? I don't if you've noticed, _Dad_, but my _job_ is to be in harm's way, and-"

"This is not a job," he said stonily. "This is _not_-"

"My life?" interrupted Lian. "Because actually, it is." She threw out her arm towards the operating room, where Sin was under the knife. "_This_," she said emphatically, "is my life."

Roy stared at her for a moment silently, a muscle in his jaw jumping. Then he turned abruptly and barked to Dinah, "Why hasn't she been moved to the Watchtower yet?"

"It's not-"

"We have better medical supplies there. We get in contact with the best doctors we have, she'll be fine."

There was silence. Dinah turned and left.

Roy covered his face with his hand. "Jesus," he murmured. "This can't be happening."

"Sin's strong," said Connor. "She'll recover."

"You don't know that," Roy said, and he had to tear the words from his throat. "You don't want to say it, but we all know that the most likely thing is Sin comes out of that room, but she _never _wakes up."

"Roy," said Ollie, almost gently, and he took a step forward, put a hand on Roy's shoulder, and then drew his fist back and punched him squarely in the nose. As Roy stumbled and almost fell, stunned, Lian took hold of him, steadying her father.

Roy looked up, blood leaking from his nose. "What the _f_-"

"You," Ollie said, his voice heavy and strong and threatening, "do _not_ talk like that. Not you. Not now. Not about _her_."

"God this is _so_-" Roy straightened up, wiping his nose. "This is exactly why you and Dinah never work out, you know that? You get _pissed_ when something bad happens, instead of supporting her or hell, even supporting _Sin_ – the girl could be _dying _in there and-"

"Shut _up!_"

They both looked at Lian, who was shaking slightly.

"That's it, isn't it?" she asked, looking at her father, then at Oliver. "That's exactly it. There's a girl _dying_ in there. A girl we all care about. And you're out here yelling at each other."

She looked at them.

Then she muttered, "Come on, Milly. Let's go home."

"No," said Roy. "You're not going back to the Tower." He reached out to take hold of her arm. "We're going home, for real."

She whipped around, tearing her arm from his grip. "This _is_ my real home," she hissed, and she turned to leave. Milagro looked at the rest of them helplessly, and then followed Lian out.

Lian sat, holding her legs into her chest, on a green construct as Milagro flew them both back. There was a silence, and then the Green Lantern said, "I don't think this is right."

"No," replied Lian. "There's something very, very wrong."

"No," said Milagro. "I mean, yes. But…I think we should have stayed with Sin."

Lian didn't reply immediately. Then, "I just didn't want to be there."

"But…" she paused, then continued, "She's like a little sister to you. Don't you think you should be there for her? I mean…what if she…what if this is the last time we'd get to see her?"

Lian closed her eyes. "It's not," she said.

"But it could be."

"_No_."

Milagro turned. There were no tears in Lian's eyes, but every inch of her body was tight, drawn in, as if she would fall apart if she didn't control herself.

Milagro looked away. It felt strange, to see Lian so helpless. The girl was usually so cool, so reserved, so in control. It scared her.

Back at the Tower, Milagro considered returning to Sin, but couldn't in good conscience leave Lian alone. Not after what happened to Sin.

Wordlessly, Lian went to the kitchen, sitting within eyesight of Milagro. Milagro wrapped around herself, then constructed a familiar green object around her ear; feedback for a moment, and then: "Milagro?"

"_Hola_, Jaime," she said, letting out a silent breath of relief.

"_Qué pasa?_"

"It's Sin. Have you heard yet?"

"Heard what?"

"She's hurt bad."

"_Que? Como_?"

"_No sé._ I found her last night. She's pretty beat up."

A silence. "_Y tú? _Are you okay?"

Milagro didn't reply right again. "No," finally sighed, her voice breaking slightly. "I don't think so, Jaime. I don't think so."

In Keystone City, Wally West and his wife stood together, talking in hushed voices. "That's two of them," murmured Wally. "Two of their biggest hitters. It's gotta end."

"Don't you think we should just increase their protection?" replied Linda. "We'd have a higher chance of catching the sicko who did this then."

"Are you really suggesting using our _children_ as bait?"

"No, no." She paused, then said, "Bait is such a harsh word to use…"

Wally sighed. "I'm not sure I want Iris back there," he said. "Not to mention Jai. It's better for everyone if they empty the Tower."

"And what if that's what they're trying to achieve?" asked Linda. "Whoever's doing this, I mean. What if they want the Tower empty?"

Wally considered this silently, his face unnaturally pale.

In Jai's bedroom upstairs, Iris was sitting on the floor and Jai on his bed. "This is crazy," muttered Iris. "This is _Sin_ we're talking about. Nobody can _touch _her."

Jai didn't reply. Iris looked at him, then got to her knees and reached out to take his hand.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But she'll be okay. I promise."

He pulled his hand away from hers. "You don't know that."

She didn't move, her heart breaking for her brother.

And then a familiar ring went off, and she slowly sat back down, pulling out a small transmitter. It was closer to a cell phone, really, but only the Teen Titans and her parents ever contacted her through it.

She answered it, holding it up to her ear. "Hello?"

"Iris. I need to see you."

Her very existence lifted slightly at the sound of his voice. "I know," she said. "Me too. I can't believe what happened to Sin. And right after you too. I mean…it's just-"

"Sin?" asked Damian. "What? What happened to Sin?"

Iris hesitated. "I…she's in the hospital."

"Hospital? _Sin?_"

"I know," said the red-haired girl. "It seems impossible. But something got to her, Dami. Maybe the same thing that got to you."

Silence. And then, "When?"

"What?"

"When was Sin attacked?"

"Last night. Very late, almost early morning."

Damian didn't say anything for a moment, then he repeated, "I need to see you."

"Okay," she said, glancing at Jai. "Can I run you over here or something? My parents don't even want to let me out of their sight."

"No," replied Damian firmly. "This…isn't something for your parents to see." He paused, then asked, "Can you meet me at the Tower?"

"What? No. Did you not just hear me say-"

"Iris. This is important."

There was a note in his voice that sent a chill down her spine. "Is it an emergency?" she asked.

Damian let out a frustrated sound. "Look, I need to see you," he said aggressively. "Be at the Tower tonight, I'll see you-"

"Damian," she interrupted him indignantly. "You might be able to take off whenever the hell you want, but I've got a family here. I can't just run off. Especially not after what happened to Sin."

"I don't _care_ about Sin! I need to see you!"

There was a long silence. Iris said nothing, almost horrified.

Then Damian let out another small breath. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean that."

"No," said Iris carefully. "I think you did."

"I didn't. The news upsets me. But there is something _urgent_ I have to share with you. It might have something to do with what happened to Sin. It could help us. It could help her."

Iris considered this for a moment, then said, "I'll be there. Tonight."

"Thank you," he said, and he almost sounded desperate. "I'll see you."

The line went dead. Iris looked up to see her brother staring at her.

"Are you serious?" he asked quietly. Iris rolled her eyes. "You're going to _leave?_" he pressed. "Uh, have you _met_ our parents? Dad's not even gonna let you out of the house."

"Well," replied Iris, almost lightly, "maybe he won't be able to."

Jai stared at her. "What does that mean?"

"It means that I'm faster than he is," answered Iris smoothly. "Which means he can't make me do anything."

He continued to stare straight at her. "Have you lost your mind?" he demanded. "First Damian – now Sin – don't you think Mom and Dad have a _right _to be concerned?"

"I think I can take care of myself," sniffed Iris.

Jai let out a noise of derision. "I think that attitude's gonna get you killed," he said. "Don't come crawling to me to pull your molecules back together. You go too fast, you're done. You hear me? You're _done_."

"Oh, shut up, Jai."

"I'm not kidding here. Why are you so sure you don't need their help? They could _fix_ you, Irey-"

Her eyes flashed, and it was like a bolt of electricity ran down her whole body, and her voice was raised, "I'm _not_ broken!"

A silence. Jai finally averted his gaze, and then Iris turned around and left, slamming the door shut behind her.

She headed for the stairs, stopping halfway to close her eyes, take a deep breath and focus. She had to be completely in control in front of her father. If he noticed her vibrations at all, then everything would be over.

She entered the kitchen, where her parents were still conversing in hushed voices. They silenced the second she appeared. "Hey baby," said Linda, reaching out to her daughter. Iris wrapped her arms around her mother, and took her father's hand when he reached out as well. "You okay?" asked Linda, brushing a strand of hair out of her daughter's face. Iris nodded. "How's your brother holding up?"

Iris didn't reply immediately. "I think it's…harder for him," she said carefully. Her mother cocked her head slightly, waiting for an explanation. "Than it was for me," she added, "when Damian got hurt. I mean, he and Sin…they haven't even really…"

She stopped herself, shaking her head and pulled away from both of her parents. "We'll find whoever did this, Irey," said Wally. "It's just a matter of time."

"I know," she replied, meeting his gaze. "But until then…I think Jai and I need to go back to the Tower."

An urgent look of alarm passed over Wally's face. "What?" he asked. "It's not safe there. No, honey, you and your brother are staying here until-"

"Lian's there," she interrupted forcefully. "Which means that Red Arrow is too. He wouldn't leave her alone. Not after this." She paused, then continued, "And last I heard, Milagro was there as well. I'm positive her brother's there by now, and who knows? Maybe he brought another Green Lantern with him. You know how protective of her they are."

Wally looked at his wife uneasily.

"You get Chris and Damian to show up as well," she said steadily, "and there's not going to be a safer place on the whole planet."

"We could get you off-planet," added Wally, but he was only half serious. "The Watchtower-"

"Is too far away," Iris interrupted. "We need protection, but the entire Justice League can't just pack up their things and move to the moon until things are better."

No one said anything.

"Please, Dad," Iris continued, her voice slightly lower, more vulnerable. "I need to be with them right now."

A silence. Linda turned to look at her husband. With a short sigh, he relented. "Yeah," he said. "I'll contact the League."

Damian was the last to show up. When he slid into the main room of the Tower, where the rest of the team was already sitting waiting for him – everyone in uniform, he noted – Iris looked up, meeting his gaze with a dull sort of intensity.

"Robin," said Superman, standing before them; Flash stood on one side of him, Red Arrow on the other. "Glad you could finally join us."

"My apologies," he replied flatly. "I was hoping to avoid the lecture."

"Just sit down," said Milagro, her voice tense and angry.

Damian took a seat on the arm of the couch, beside Iris, who laid a protective palm across his thigh. Jai sat on the other side of Iris, his legs pulled into his chest; Maxine sat next to him, between Jai and Chris, who watched Superman intently. Milagro and Lian sat on an adjacent loveseat, leaning heavily on one another.

Superman looked at all of them slowly, and then said, "You all know why you're here. You've done nothing wrong; this is only a precaution." He paused, then continued, "Two of you have been attacked in your own homes. There's a high likelihood that whoever's doing this will continue to target you. Don't worry. We're going to keep you safe."

"I have a question," said Damian loudly.

Superman looked at him. "Yes, Robin?"

"Why aren't you telling us the truth?"

The man stared at Damian. Red Arrow stepped forward slightly. "Do us all a favor, kid," he said lowly. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."

"Are you threatening me?" asked Damian.

"Of course not," replied Superman soothingly, before Red Arrow could say anything more. "This is for your own protection."

"I'm sure it is," said Damian curtly. "Why else would you bug the place so thoroughly?"

Damian's entire team looked to him, some clearly furious, others with eyes wide. Superman didn't look away.

"Superboy," said Damian, holding his ground under Superman's stare. There was the sound of small objects flying through the air and metal and plastic clicking together; and then, before them in a small pile on the ground lay a mound of tiny cameras and audio transmitters. Chris looked up at Superman defiantly.

The rest of the team gaped at the pile disbelievingly. "What the hell?" asked Lian, standing up, outraged. She took a step towards her father. "Did you know about this?"

"Calm down," said Roy tightly. "You know why those were there. You all know."

Maxine began to sniffle slightly, her hands at her face, covering her damp eyes. Jai put an arm around her and turned his face slightly, as if he couldn't even watch.

"This is our home," said Chris, but his voice was almost soft. "You can stand watch by the door all you want, but this is where we're safe. All _this_ tells us," he bowed his head slightly, glancing at the pile, "is that you don't trust us."

"Of course they don't trust us," said Damian coldly, getting to his feet as well, taking a threatening step towards the three heroes. "Sin was on the island when she was attacked. That's what you're _really_ getting at, isn't it?"

Superman said nothing.

Damian looked to Lian. "They think we have a traitor in our midst."

Lian took this comment silently, locking eyes with Damian.

"No," said Red Arrow fiercely. "_No_."

The boy turned back to the rest of his team, his dark eyes searing them. "Think about it," he implored. "Would they have done this with _any_ other team in our situation, if they didn't suspect one of us? Would they have reacted _so_ dramatically if they weren't absolutely _sure_ one of us had become a threat?" He paused, his breath almost shaking. "They don't trust us!" he said, and his voice got away from him and it rang harshly in the silent tower. "They're not trying to protect us! We're _locked down_. They've just _jailed _us. We are their _prison_-"

"Robin," said the Flash abruptly, cutting him off. Damian silenced without turning around to face him. "Stand down."

For a second, Damian didn't move. And then he slunk back to the others, and stood beside Iris defensively.

Looking almost wearily at Damian and his daughter, Flash continued, "It's true. Our…reaction to this has been dramatic. I know, I _know_, that you probably see it as over the top. Unnecessary." He paused. "But you are our children. And regardless of whether you want us to or not, we are going to protect you. Because none of us wants to be where Black Canary is right now. None of us want to run the risk of having to bury a son or daughter."

"Or sister," muttered Milagro under her breath, feeling jaded; but her words were drowned out by Maxine, who suddenly let out a shuddering cry.

"Oh, G-God," she sobbed. "S-Sin – she's gone – she's-"

"She's not," said Red Arrow, stepping forward, his voice soft once again. "Sin is holding on. And that's all we're asking you to do. Just hold on a little while until things are safer for you. We're not holding anybody prisoner."

"Good," said Robin, piercing the tension. "Then you'll allow me to leave."

Red Arrow opened his mouth, but before he spoke the Flash said, "Yes, Robin. If you really want to, you're free to go."

Damian finally met the Flash's gaze. After a few moments, the boy lowered his eyes.

Another silence. Red Arrow reached out to Lian, but she pulled away from him, returning to her seat with Milagro.

"We'll secure the area," said Superman. "We'll do a sweep of the island and each of your respective homes. When we're done, everybody can go home. What happens then is your parent's decision."

"I have another question," Jai said. "Are we the only ones?"

His father asked, "The only ones what?"

"Who are being protected," Jai continued. "I mean, it's not like we're the only kids in the world whose parents are superheroes. What about everybody else?"

Superman said, "At the moment it appears that this team alone has been targeted. But thank you for that reminder, Jai. We'll keep the other children in mind." He nodded at them. "Red Arrow will be staying here to make sure you're safe." At the instant protests from the team, he added, "_But_ I'm sure he can be persuaded to, say, wait outside the door if you so desire. This won't take long. Thank you all, and know that we care about your safety very much."

The Flash then nodded at Iris and Jai, who both stood up and went to talk together quietly; Red Arrow reached out to Lian again, who wouldn't even look at him, then finally relented and stood up, pulling him slightly away from the others. Chris stood almost reluctantly, meeting Damian's gaze before heading to Superman.

Milagro moved to sit beside Maxine, who was still in tears. Damian looked at Iris and her family, then down at the ground.

"Where's your dad?" asked Milagro, looking up at him. "Outside spying on us? You want to let him know it's okay to come in? We're not _that_ scared of him, you kn-"

"He's not here," said Damian roughly.

Milagro blinked. "What?"

"I came alone," Damian told her, looking up, as if daring her to comment.

For a second, Milagro said nothing. Then, "Wow," she said. "That's harsh. Even for him."

"Don't sound so smug," Damian replied coolly. "I'm sure he's sweeping the Manor right now."

"Or making out with Catwoman while you're gone," she added nonchalantly, a smirk on her face. "I hear that's what he does on his time off."

Damian glared at her. Then he looked down at Maxine, who was holding her sleeve to her nose, rocking back and forth slightly. "What about you, Maxine?" he asked gently. "Is your father here?"

She nodded, finally pulling her sleeve away. "He dropped me off an hour ago," she said, still sniffling. "I asked Cliff to come but he wouldn't." She blinked more tears from her eyes. "I wish he was here."

Milagro rubbed her back reassuringly, and when Damian looked up at her again she added, "My brother came as soon as he could. He was here for a while, but he left with Guy about the time Jai and Iris got here. Red Arrow's been here all day. Superman and Chris came as soon as everyone else agreed to meet."

Damian nodded silently. Superman took hold of Chris reassuringly, then looked up. "Flash," he said. "Are you ready?"

The Flash looked at Superman, then took hold of his kids; as they pulled away, he held onto their hands. "Take care of each other," he said earnestly. "If anything happens – and I mean _anything_ – just call for Clark. He'll answer, I promise." He straightened up and nodded at Superman.

"We'll be back soon," said Superman with a powerful sort of finality, and then he and the Flash were gone.

The team looked around to Red Arrow, still talking quietly to Lian. He looked up and said, with a strained look on his face, "I guess you kids don't want me hanging around spoiling your fun, huh?"

Lian almost rolled her eyes. "Dad, can you please just leave?" she murmured.

"I'll just wait outside," he said. "Just outside this door. I promise I won't peek through the keyhole."

"That door doesn't _have_ a keyhole," said Chris, almost suspiciously.

Red Arrow let out an uncertain laugh. "Alright," he said. "Nothing gets past you, does it, Superboy?" He paused. Lian reached out and tugged him towards the door. "Okay, okay, I'm going," he said. "Just don't get too crazy, kids. No parties while I'm out, you hear me?"

"Please be quiet," said Lian, as she pushed her father out the door and typed something into the keypad on the wall. The door slid shut silently, and the team was alone.

There was a silence, and then Damian said, "Iris."

"Right," she replied, and he headed towards the kitchen; she followed him, and another door slid shut behind them. "This is ridiculous," she murmured, once they were alone. "Do they really think they can keep me here?"

"Probably," replied Damian. "They don't know how fast you are."

"I could slip right out of here and get back without anybody noticing," she said, sounding irritated. "Without even _you_ noticing. In fact, I could've gone to China and back _twice_ in the time we've been speaking."

"No, you couldn't have," said Damian, pulling off his gloves. "That'd take you streamlining the Speed Force. You wouldn't do that to your father. Not right now."

She eyed him carefully. "You're right," she told him, "but I wish you knew how difficult it was."

"To do something of that magnitude? Of course I know. I know how strong you are, Iris, you don't have to-"

"No," interrupted Iris. "To _not_ do it."

Damian looked at her.

"I have…" she trailed off, searching for words, "…so much _power_ inside of me. Just raw, primal power. I want to run it off, I need to get it out of my muscles, my legs. But I can't. I can't because if I do, I might _kill_ somebody." She took a seat by the counter, pulling down her cowl. "It's so frustrating, to have all of that power but never the chance to use it."

Damian could say nothing to this. "You'll get your chance," he said, finally. "When our generation leads the League. When _you_ are the Flash."

She almost laughed. "Right, right," she muttered. "Now. What was it you were so desperate to meet about?"  
The boy slipped his fingers underneath his sleeves at his wrist and pulled the fabric back, exposing his forearms. He held them out, displaying the scars there.

Her eyes widened, then narrowed again as she inspected the words. She took his left arm in her hands, gently brushing her fingertips along the red scars. "Did you do this to yourself?" she asked.

"No," replied Damian. "Of course not. They appeared this morning. They're just scratches, but one moment there weren't there and the next they were. I don't know how. But look. The message is clearly directed to me."

He held his arms out before him; she peered over his shoulder, and the phrase completed itself; as he had shown it to her, the inside of his forearms facing away from him, it had been backwards, reading _COMES BAGHEERA._

"_Bagheera_…" murmured Iris thoughtfully. "Why does that name seem so familiar?" She paused, then asked, "Did you check your father's databases? Is it a known criminal alias?"

"I didn't search for the name itself," replied Damian. "He tracks me computer usage and I don't want to give him any hints about this. But I went through his external databases as thoroughly as I could without searching for specifics and I didn't find anything. It sounds like Hindi, maybe," he added. "But I'm not completely sure. I need you to do some research."

"We can use the computers here, right?"

"No, my father is monitoring those too."

Iris raised an eyebrow. "Control freak much?"

Damian let out a sad little chuckle. "You have no idea."

Suddenly the door to the kitchen slid open and Maxine poked her head in. "You guys?" she asked innocently, as Damian quickly pulled down his sleeves. "I really think we should stay together. What if something weird happens again and you guys get hurt and we don't know?"

"Oh, back off, Maxy," said Milagro, standing behind her, her arms crossed aggressively. "They're off doing _grown-up_ things while the rest of us kids are stuck out here."

"We're not doing anything," Damian shot back, but then Iris interjected.

"If you must know," she said. "We're discussing the case."

Chris appeared above Milagro, floating in the air. "The case?" he asked. "What case?"

"Do we _have_ another case?" replied Iris. "We're going to figure out who did this to Sin."

Jai pushed his way to the front. "How?" he demanded.

"It's just a matter of putting the clues together," said Iris. "We already have the name of her attacker."  
"No, we don't," said Lian, standing behind Milagro. "We don't have anything. Unless our parents decide to fill us in on the details after they let us go. Which we all know they _won't_."

"Au contraire, ye of little faith," sang Iris and she reached out to take Damian's arm, a grin on her face.

"Iris-"

"We can trust them, Dami," she said, meeting his gaze intensely, and then she turned back to the others and wrenched his sleeve up.

At first nobody said anything, and then Lian asked, "How did you get that?"

"I don't know," replied Damian. "But somebody took me down, and I don't know how they did that either. We're thinking it's the same person."

"You think it's somebody named Bagheera?" asked Chris. "Who's Bagheera? I've never heard of that alias."

"It's not an alias," said Maxine, sounding slightly surprised. "It's a character!"

They all stared at her. "What?" asked Damian.

"You know," she continued, "Bagheera. The panther from _The Jungle Book_?"

Milagro looked at the name on Damian's arm. "Oh my God," she said. "She's right."

"_The Jungle Book_?" asked Damian doubtfully. "The Kipling story?"

"Um, sure," said Maxine. "But I just know the movie. _It's the – bare necessities, the simple bare necessities, forget about your worries and your strife…_"

"So where does that leave us?" asked Jai. "Does Batman have a file on this guy?"

"I don't think so," replied Damian. "I think he may be new."

"Or she," added Milagro. "The slinky black panther from a Disney movie. Seems more like something a woman would choose."

"Let's not make any assumptions just yet," said Damian. "For now we just have to keep this under absolute wraps. It's our only lead. When we get the chance, can I count on all of you to look into this individually? To see if we can come up with any known information?"

There was a chorus of agreement. "Good," said Iris, sounding pleased. "Now, Lian – you were the only one on the island when Sin was attacked, right?"

Lian nodded, her face pale. "But I've already told them everything I know," she said. "Which isn't very much. I was asleep the whole time. Milagro even took her to the hospital without waking me."

"I had to be quick," said Milagro, almost as if she were pleading with her.

"I know," replied Lian quietly, only glancing at her. "My point is that I don't know _anything._ Except that Sin doesn't like being inside too much. She took walks out on the shore all the time. But pretty much everybody knew that already, right?"

"Right," said Iris. "But everything helps."

There was a pause, and then Maxine said meekly, "I might have something."

Everyone looked to her. "What is it, Maxy?" asked Iris kindly.

Nervously, Maxine looked around at all of them. "When Sin and I were sparring yesterday," she began, "I got a little carried away."

Jai's expression suddenly hardened. Damian's body tensed slightly.

"It was nothing, though," said Milagro quickly. "I was there. It wasn't anything that bad, she just hurt her wrist."

"Bad," squeaked Maxine. "I hurt her hand pretty bad. I don't think she could fight with it."

Iris and Damian exchanged looks. "Okay," said Iris. "That's something. Considering how Sin is normally unbeatable in hand-to-hand combat, this would give her attacker a significant edge."

"Not really," said Lian. "I've sparred with that girl a hundred times. She could kick my ass both hands tied behind her back and both _feet_ cut off."

"Besides," added Milagro, "who says that her attacker had to be within close range? He or she may not have even had to be _on_ the island."

"Her injuries suggest-"

"Sin was so intensely beat up that it's impossible to tell exactly what hit her," continued Milagro toughly. "It could've been anything."

"Not anything," added Jai. "Nothing that wouldn't have woken Lian."

A sudden icy chill pulsed through the room. "Thanks, Jai," Lian said coldly.

"Hey." Chris landed solidly between all of them. "We know you had nothing to do with this, Lian," he said, then he looked around at the rest of them. "As of now, we are all above suspicion. As long as we share what we know, we shouldn't have anything to worry about." He looked at Damian and Iris. "That goes for you two as well. I know you're prone to keeping your secrets, we all know how smart you think you are – but you're both part of this team. You're both part of a _unit_ and right now, solidarity is what's important."

He glanced around at all of them, locking eyes with each one of them in turn.

"I don't know if you can feel it," he continued, softer now, "but there's something brewing out there that I don't like. Something in the way our parents look at us. The way our _families_ look at us." He paused. "If it comes down to it," he said, "if we have to fight," he looked back at Damian, who nodded almost imperceptibly, "then we have to absolutely believe in each other. If it's us or them, then we have to understand what _us_ means." He looked to Lian and to Jai in turn, almost apologetically. "It means that we trust each other. We don't doubt each other. And we _certainly_ don't blame each other for whatever happens."

He was silent for a moment.

"You understand?"

"Yes," said Milagro, almost gravely, speaking for them all. "This is our team, Chris. I know I wouldn't ever betray any of us." She suddenly grinned. "Except for Damian, maybe."

"Yeah, well," muttered Lian. "I think we all daydream of screwing Damian over, once in a while."

"Oh, yes," added Iris, turning to face him, a small smirk on her face. "Screwing Damian. My favorite daydream, actually."

Jai let out a disgusted little noise and turned away, falling across the couch again. "I'm not even a part of this team," he called. "I don't even have superpowers!"

"You're my twin," Iris replied, instantly by his side. "You and I have an important connection. Who knows what would happen to me without you?"

"You'd die, probably," Jai replied, his voice muffled, his face pressed into the couch. Iris laughed.

"Exactly," she said. "Which is why we need to keep you around, and why you're a part of us."

"Plus you're really nice," added Maxine. "And we love you."

Jai didn't reply.

Then he lifted his head slightly and said, "I hope Sin's okay."

They all fell silent, a heavy weight pressing down on them.

"Yeah," muttered Iris gently, calmingly. "I do too, Jai."

The silence hung for a long time, an ominous length of rope hanging just above their heads. Milagro thought of the way Sin had looked when she found her, bloodied, bruised, broken; a pile of bones and flesh.

Her neck tingled slightly, as if she could feel a noose tightening around her throat.


	5. The eyes

Chapter Five: The eyes

_"The dead papers stirred,  
the dust, lazily,  
rearranged itself, a rag  
flapped in the broken window,  
and everything carried on as it was:  
the motionless street, the eyes  
that watched me from the well,  
the houses that never seemed  
to wait for anyone, the doors  
already demolished and naked:  
everything was hard and dusty:  
it was dead, it was alive,  
it wanted to die and be born."  
_-Pablo Neruda, "Suburbs"

The Teen Titans were quarantined for the rest of the night, which led to Damian loudly complaining that he was missing a valuable night of patrol for a few hours. The rest of the team did their best to ignore him, trying to play Monopoly again for a while, and then they all sat together almost silently. Lian and Iris sat together, leaning against one another. Milagro sat apart from the rest of them, a miniature green galaxy between her hands, changing and lighting up at her will. Chris, Damian and Maxine sat in a corner together. Damian spoke to her quietly, and Chris watched them wordlessly.

At dawn the door opened and Red Arrow stepped in. "We're all done," he announced. "You're safe to go home now."

"This is our home," said Lian.

Her father met her gaze. "Lian-" he began, but she shook her head, silencing him. He looked at her painfully, then around at the others. "Come on. Your families are waiting for you."

And most of their families were there; the Flash collected his children in his arms, holding them tightly, and Maxine ran straight for her father, throwing her arms around him. The Blue Beetle was there, and so was Traci Thirteen, and there were almost uncharacteristic tears in Milagro's eyes as she went to them. Superman held onto Chris's shoulder tightly, protectively, asking him questions in a hushed voice. Chris only nodded again and again, and Superman touched base with the rest of the Leaguers before the two of them left. Chris turned around and met the eyes of everyone in his team in turn, and then he followed Superman away.

Damian left them all, heading down to where the Batwing was stored, to head back to Gotham alone. He didn't even glance back, his expression hard and unreadable.

And then when he blinked, Iris appeared before him, a crooked smile on her lips. "You didn't think I'd let you go without a goodbye kiss, did you?" she asked slyly, wrapping her arms around his neck. She leaned up to kiss his lips, but he turned his face away. She pulled back. She blinked, and there was silence between them for a few moments. "What's wrong?" she asked him quietly, urgently. "What's wrong, baby?"

"They're right," he whispered, and then he closed his eyes, opened them again, and continued, his voice stronger, "They're right, you know. We are being targeted. They don't even know how bad I was. If you hadn't healed me I would still be recovering right now." He paused, then said, "Do you think-"

"No," replied Iris, before he even finished his question. "Sin's under twenty-four-seven surveillance. I can't get in there and help her heal undetected."

He nodded, without meeting her gaze. "That's what I thought."

Silence.

He looked up. He brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. "I need to be with you," he whispered.

She held him tightly, under the harsh artificial lights of the garage. "I know."

"No, you don't," he continued, and his voice was shaking. "You don't understand, Irey. Whatever's targeting us – it could come for you at any second. Tomorrow you could be where Sin is."

"I don't know," she said reasonably. "I heal pretty fast."

"What if you don't?" he asked, searching her eyes desperately. "What if you can't?"

She blinked, slightly taken aback at his intensity. "What do you want, Damian?" she asked him. "What do you want me to tell you? That I'll be safe? You know I will. Nothing can touch me." He held her, a strange, foreign sort of hunger in his touch. Softly, she added, "Except you."

He pulled away from her, meeting her eyes again.

She leaned in and kissed his mouth lightly, her lips merely brushing against his. "You'll be okay," she told him. "I know you, and you will always be okay, Mister Wayne. You hear me?"

He finally let go of her. "You know I do," he replied, but there was no life in his voice. "I'll see you, Iris. Be safe."

"Same goes for you," she said, as he climbed into the plane. "Oh, and, Damian."

He stopped and looked around at her.

She smiled. "You can _be_ with me any time you want," she said, her voice low and almost throaty. "Pick a time and place, Boy Wonder. I'll be there whenever you're ready."

And then she was gone, leaving Damian alone.

The days passed. Iris didn't hear from Damian for almost a week, much longer than usual, but he was prone to his occasional silences, especially when he was anxious or scared. It was not always easy to identify fear in Damian for the front he put up, the strength and power he oozed in person, the way he always moved forward, never distracted, never deterred. But for all of the bravado he constructed for the rest of the team, Iris could see straight through him. Maybe it was because she was so similar, because she always pretended she knew what she was doing, because she had so much to live up to, to protect. Whatever the reason, when he was afraid, she could tell, and so she did not press him.

A whole week passed, and then another, and there were no more attacks. The Teen Titans did not reconvene as a whole group, but there were often a few of them at the Tower at a time. Iris and Jai were there often; some equipment from their mother's laboratory had been moved to the Tower a long time ago, and Iris was throwing herself back into her brother's observational experiments with a renewed vigor. She remembered what Damian had taught her about meditation, and what Sin had always said as well. Determined to gain control over her own body, even at the molecular level, she spent hours concentrating, focusing on quietness, stillness.

Jai was both relieved and irritated. He was glad that she was finally learning to manage herself, but at the same time he didn't want to be around her. He didn't want to be around the Tower. He didn't want to be a part of any of this. He just wanted to go back to Keystone, to go to school and play video games and spend time with friends who weren't superheroes and not think about Sin.

He forced the thought from his mind. He'd seen Sin once. Their father had taken him and Iris, and the two of them had stood by her hospital bed, watching her swollen, discolored face, listening to the hum and whir of the machines attached to her at her arm, her throat, her nose and mouth. Jai had had to look away, his mouth suddenly turning sour. Iris had been back to visit her. Jai had not.

Jai knew he didn't have any powers. There was no place for him in the Teen Titans. He had only ever been included to be there for his sister, to make sure she was safe and stable. To see her improvement…it was heartening, but alarming at the same time. The second Iris was completely under control would be the moment she didn't need him anymore.

As the days passed, the trail became colder. In New York City, Dick Grayson stared at a wall covered with leads and clues, holding a phone to his ear. "How is this remotely asking too much of you?" he asked heatedly. "No, Tim, I don't believe that. Are you still angry at Damian? For what?" He paused, then let out a frustrated breath. "Oh, come on. That was years ago. Just get – you know what, nevermind. Just keep an eye on the kids, okay? Let Conner know that Chris isn't necessarily out of the woods yet." Another pause. "I don't – Tim, they don't have to _get along_ for Conner to look out for him. Don't be such a-"

A quiet _click_ and Dick took the phone away from his ear, staring at it, somewhat appalled that Tim would hang up on him like that.

There was a knock at the door. Dick discarded the phone and crossed the apartment, opening the door. "You called?"

Dick nodded, stepping aside to let the man in. "Thanks for coming," he said. "I would've just wired you the information, but…"

"I get it," said Roy fairly. "I appreciate the caution. I'm not really sure anything is secure anymore."

Dick paused, then asked, "Where's Lian?"

"With Connor," he answered. "She usually heads out with him anyway. Apparently patrolling the city in the dead of night with your dad is embarrassing for the teenage superhero. Who knew?"

At any other time, Dick would've grinned. But he just looked to the wall, covered with information, and Roy frowned slightly, inspecting it.

"You pieced this much together?" he asked, scanning the info. "All from what happened to Sin?"

"Pretty much," replied Dick. "But Damian got hit too, remember."

"Oh, right," muttered Roy. "I'd almost forgotten about that."

"Exactly," said Dick steadily.

Silence. Roy glanced at Dick. "What?"

"Damian's attack," he continued. "It was…minor. He recovered in a matter of days."

"Do you think it's even related?" asked Roy thoughtfully. "Maybe somebody just got the jump on the kid."

"I don't think so," said Dick. "You don't know him, but Damian doesn't make mistakes like that."

"I'm just saying-"

"So," Dick interrupted, ignoring Roy's words. "I had to ask, who would want to hurt the team, but not Damian?"

Roy looked back at the wall.

"There's also that toxin in Sin's system," the darker man continued. "The one that's keeping her blood from clotting, which is why she's hardly improved in the past two weeks."

"I thought we decided it wasn't traceable toxin," said Roy.

"It didn't seem so," conceded Dick. "But that's when I started thinking about Damian's attack." He pointed to a printout pinned to the wall. "A shipment of toxins which would serve as the base ingredients for what's in Sin's system was imported into the US about a month ago. From a subsidiary of an organization known to be under the thumb of an al Ghul."

A hard edge appeared in Roy's eye and a crease etched its way into his forehead. "Ra's."

"No," said Dick. "Talia."

Roy looked at him. "You think Talia had her own son attacked first?"

"Of course she did," Dick said. "Otherwise we might suspect him."

Roy looked back at the paper, then to Dick again. "_Do _we suspect him?"

"No," Dick replied. "But she's very aware of how the heroing community views him, I think. She'd want to clear his name."

"So she attacks him first, lets him recover, and then hits Sin? Why Sin? And why hasn't she gone after anybody since then? Is she waiting for us to let up our protection? I never really took her for the opportunist type-"

"I'm not done," said Dick. He pointed to another paper on the wall, connected to several others with red string. "The shipment was sent to a dummy address. I couldn't get anything important from it but the name."

"And?" asked Roy. "Who was it to?"

Dick looked at the paper, then back at Roy almost bitterly. "Who else?" he asked, sounding tired. "It was sent to a known alias of one Slade Wilson."

Roy was silent for a moment, then he swore quietly. "What the hell, man?" he asked, his voice burning. "Why can't we ever catch a break with this guy? Why hasn't he just up and _died_ yet?"

"We should've expected it," Dick told him. "You know his spiel. _You took my kids, I'll take yours_. They're lucky to have made it this long without his interference."

"Where is he?" demanded Roy. "Let's find him and get this over with. I don't want to drag this out any longer than it needs to be."

"For the past few years, Slade's tunneled so far underground even Batman doesn't know where he is," said Dick. 'This is the first time he's shown any kind of activity."

Roy paused, then said, "You think he's been spending all that time planning this?"

"Probably," replied Dick. "I think it's much larger than we think it is. And I think he's not working alone."

"What do you mean?"

"Like I said," sighed Dick, "why else would Damian be attacked first – but only _injured_, not incapacitated? And then a few days later, Sin gets beat to hell. And now, it's been weeks and nothing. There's no pattern. It doesn't make sense, and it's not his style."

"So you think Talia's pulling the strings?"

"I think she's got something to do with it, yes," said Dick. "But that leads me to my main point."

"Main point?" asked Roy cautiously. "You haven't gotten to your _main point_ yet?"

"Nope," said Dick. "But you're not going to like it."

Roy looked at the other man, then crossed his arms defensively. "Hit me," he said.

Dick met his gaze, and then turned, pointing to another paper; Sin's tox screen. "It's not necessarily the poison itself that's causing us the trouble," he said, "it's how thoroughly it's permeated her system. Its persistence is enhanced, maybe, but there's also the obvious conclusion."

"Obvious?" asked Roy, almost dangerously. "What do you mean by that?"

"It's what none of us want to consider," said Dick. "And believe me, neither did I. I _keep looking_ for another answer, and I can't find one. All I see is this."

"This?" asked Roy. "What's _this?_"

"Sin had to have been exposed to this toxin sometime before her attack," said Dick. "By _sometime before_, I'm talking about weeks. Somebody was dosing her up on this, to make sure she was chockfull of it when the time came."

"Somebody?" asked Roy. Dick nodded. "You mean somebody on the team."

Dick didn't move for a moment, and then bowed his head in consent.

Roy's body was instantly rigid. He looked back to the wall, his teeth grinding. "No," he said. "Do you know that team? No."

"Roy, I know what you're thinking-"

"You don't."

"I do." Dick watched him, concern written all over his face. "You think I suspect Lian."

"No," said Roy shortly. "Of course you wouldn't suspect the girl who's been living with Sin for – for what, the past year now? You don't have to lie to me, Dick. If she's on the list, she's on the list."

"She's not," said Dick, and Roy all but let out a sigh of relief. "Well. Technically the whole team is. But I think I've narrowed it down a little."

"Narrowed it down?" echoed Roy. He looked at Dick. Then, slightly more quietly, he asked, "Is that why you didn't invite Wally?"

Dick let out a long breath, and turned his eyes to the wall, his gaze grating against the information there. "Yeah," he said finally. "I wasn't sure how he'd take it. I didn't want to take any chances."

There was a short silence.

Roy said, "You've gotta be wrong."

"I don't think I am."

The other man looked at Dick. "Jai or Iris?"

Dick didn't reply immediately. "Iris."

"How?"

"She's got powers she's not telling us," Dick told him. "She can do things with the Speed Force that Wally's never even dreamed of."

"I doubt that," said Roy skeptically, "but continue."

"The day of Damian's accident," Dick began, "I called her parents, and she was here to see Damian almost instantly."

"She's a speedster, Dick, that's what they do."

"No. I calculated her speed. Her run from Keystone to Gotham would've been fast even for Wally."

"So she's younger than him. Wally was faster when he was a kid."

"Actually he wasn't," Dick pointed out, "but that's almost beside the point. I talked to Wally. I know what he thinks her top speed is. I know what Bruce thinks her top speed is."

"Does Bruce have a file on her?"

"Of course. Highest priority on his list of non-League metas with no prior criminal record."

"Creepy."

"It's because she's seeing Damian."

"Does he have one on Lian?"

"Just a few notes under your name."

Roy looked back at the research on the wall. "That bastard."

Dick almost smiled, but couldn't manage it. "But I'm not done," he said. "That same day, she got Damian back on his feet somehow. He was down. Should've been unconscious for at least another day, should've taken at the very, very least a week to get back to work. She took two minutes with him and we took him home the same day."

"You got any proof?"

Dick reached out, touched the papers on the wall. "Nothing solid," he admitted. "Just a hunch."

"So we don't tell Wally."

Dick lowered his eyes slightly, as if ashamed. "No," he said. "We don't tell Wally."

Roy shook his head. "This is gonna kill Lian."

"Tell me about it," responded Dick dismally. "At least Iris isn't your kid's girlfriend."

Roy paused, then shrugged. "Not yet, anyway." He asked, "So what if you're wrong? What if Iris gets hit next?"

"I hope I am," said Dick honestly, "but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, I don't have any other leads. I'll keep digging about Slade, though. Maybe something will come up."

"I'll put some feelers out too," agreed Roy. "But let's just keep this under wraps for now. From everyone. Including suspect's said significant other."

Dick didn't reply immediately.

"Dick," began Roy, a warning. "Dick, you can't tell him."

"Why not?" asked Dick. "He'll keep an eye on her. He knows how important this is. He could seriously help us if he knows something."

"You don't even really know if it's her yet," Roy replied. "I know you're prone to your leaps of faith, but don't go jumping off any bridges just yet. Nothing's set in stone."

"I know. Of course. Like I said," he muttered, "I hope I'm wrong."

Thousands of miles away, in a private hospital room, surrounded by groaning and wheezing and clicking and beeping equipment, Milagro Reyes sat beside the prone body of one of her closest friends in the world. Her hand was resting on the bed near Sin's, but she wasn't touching her. The girl was so covered in bruises and casts and IVs that Milagro didn't think she could touch her at all without disrupting some bodily process. The only thing she could do – the only thing anyone could do – was sit there and wait for Sin's body to repair itself on its own.

Milagro pulled her hand away, putting it to her face, covering her mouth to silence herself. She dragged the back of her hands across her cheeks, underneath her eyes, wiping away the shining tears there.

"Sin, I…"

At first, her voice cracked. Then she paused, breathed deeply, and looked down at the girl's beaten face determinedly.

"Get better soon, Sin," she muttered. "I promise, before you wake up, this will all be finished." She reached out and hovered her fingers above Sin's swollen face. "I'm sorry this happened to you," she said, a strain in her voice. "You don't deserve this. You did nothing wrong."

Milagro was silent.

"You should've heard what they said," she continued, almost bitterly. "That we're all above suspicion. That we need to be a unit. That we need to stick together. You know. The usual." She paused, then said, "It's a load of crap."

She took her hands away, bowing her head in something resembling prayer.

"I need to be stronger than this," she said, her voice wavering. "I'm a Green Lantern. I'm supposed to be some kind of intergalactic space cop. But damn. How good of a cop can I possibly be if I can't keep my own friends out of trouble?"

She laughed hollowly. It turned into a choked sob halfway out.

"My brother says superheroes can't save everybody all the time," she whispered, falling apart. She reached out and, for the first time, clasped Sin's hand.

She confessed, "You're the first person I wasn't able to save."

A silence, as if Milagro expected an answer. There was none. Black Canary was waiting outside the room, and Milagro doubted that there weren't cameras watching her right now, listening to her words. Not because they didn't trust her. For Sin's safety, she had to be monitored all the time.

"I'll handle this," she said. "It's my job. You get to lie here and rest. You've earned it a hundred times over."

She let go of Sin's hand and stood up, the legs of the chair screeching slightly against the hard tile floor. As she exited, she saw Black Canary there, eyes heavy and pained.

"If she wakes up," said Milagro, greeting the woman only with a brief glance, "and I…can't be here. Will you tell her something for me?"

"Yes," said Dinah. "I will if I can."

"Tell her…"

Milagro glanced into the room again, her friend's broken body.

"Tell her I'm sorry."

The Green Lantern turned and left without waiting for another word.

Not long after, her communicator lit up with life. "Milly? Are you there?"

Milagro considered not responding. She was at her brother's apartment; he was gone, but she had the key, and it felt better to be there. It made her feel calmer, more in control.

"What is it, Maxy?"

"I was wondering. About that Bagheera thing Damian showed us."

"Yeah?"

She paused, then asked worriedly, "You don't think he thinks it has anything to do with me, do you?"

Milagro stopped cold, surprised at the question. "What are you talking about?"

"Bagheera. A panther. You know, an animal."

"What? No. That's a leap of logic not even Damian would take. Don't be stupid."

Silence. Then, her voice slightly grainy, altered by the connection, Maxine asked, "Is there really a traitor on the team, Milly?"

Milagro stacked the information in her hands, tapping the edges against a desk, evening the borders. "I couldn't tell you, Maxy," she said quietly. "I don't know what's happening to the team right now."

"Are we still a team? My dad says I'm not allowed to go back to the Tower."

"We're still a team until none of us is left."

Maxine said nothing for a moment, an anxious silence hanging between them. "Stay safe, Milly," she said. "Right now we all just need to keep ourselves safe. Things will be better once this is over."

Milagro paused. An icy chill leaked into her veins, pulsing through her body.

"Yeah," she said, almost nonchalantly. "You're right, Maxy. Take care. See you soon."

The line cut off. Milagro sunk into a chair by the desk before her. She leaned her face into her hands, covering her eyes, and she sat there full of fear and doubt and uncertainty, and she cried, alone in the dark.

That same night, another member of the Teen Titans received a call in the dark. Iris West was lying in her bed, staring at her ceiling, focusing on steadying herself before falling asleep. She hated sleeping. She hated staying still and silent and focused. She wanted to get up and run, as always. She only ever just wanted to run.

Her communicator lit up on her bedside table; without turning on her lamp, she picked it up, held it to her ear. In a whisper, she answered, "Impulse here."

"Iris," came Damian's voice, something strange in his voice. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Everybody is, as far as I know."

"Come meet me."

She glanced at the clock. "Wouldn't your dad find out?"

"You're fast enough to get through his security."

"It's too late. Call me tomorrow."

"No!"

She was taken aback by the urgency in his voice. "Damian?"

"No, I…" he took a deep, audible breath. "When you…when you can get away for a night. Come see me."

"Did something happen?"

"No," he said. "It's just that I've been thinking – and it worries me, how long it's been since the last attack. I think something is coming, and soon."

"So?"

"So I don't want it to be you."

"So you want to protect me? For a night?"

"No," he said. "I want to have just one night with you before everything goes to hell."

Iris's breath almost caught in her throat. But then she smirked. "Just one night with me, hm?"

"Yes. That's…all I want."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Then done," she answered matter-of-factly. "I'll find a night. Getting away from my parents might be hard, but it's worth it. For you."

"I'm grateful," he told her. "You mean…everything to me, Iris."

"Not everything, Damian," she said softly, closing her eyes. "Never everything."

There was a silence. Then the line went dead. Iris placed the communicator back on her bedside table, and her heart beat so rapidly in her chest, she could've sworn it stopped.

* * *

I'd like to dedicate this chapter to the now-cancelled Green Lantern: The Animated Series and Young Justice. We need more stories about young superheroes working as a team and as a family, and while YJ wasn't perfect, it certainly was that.

Not to mention that now any future possibility of Damian Wayne showing up in a third season is impossible ):


	6. Teach me

Chapter Six: Teach me

"_Teach me, he said -  
we were lying in bed -  
how to care.  
I nibbled the purse of his ear.  
What do you mean? Tell me more.  
He sat up and reached for his beer._

_I can rip out the roar  
from the throat of a tiger,  
or gargle with fire,  
or sleep one whole night in the Minotaur's lair,  
or flay the bellowing fur  
from a bear,  
all for a dare.  
There's nothing I fear.  
Put your hand here -_

_he guided my fingers over the scar  
over his heart,  
a four-medal wound from the war -  
but I cannot be gentle, or loving, or tender.  
I have to be strong  
What is the cure?"  
_-Carol Ann Duffy, from "Delilah"

"I can't believe your dad's letting you stay here alone," said Iris, sitting with Lian in the kitchen of the tower.

Lian shrugged. "Milagro's here most of the time," she replied. "Chris is in and out too. But my dad may not necessarily be aware of that, and I think he figures if a Green Lantern and Superman's kid are around, then I'll be okay." She flashed a smile at Iris. "Plus Vic installed a ton of serious new security measures. Alarms go off when it gets a little warm in here. Not to jinx it or anything, but…" she smiled widely at the red-haired girl, a blush gently tickling her cheeks, "…I doubt there's a supervillain on Earth that could get in."

"Careful," replied Iris pointedly, a half-eaten apple in her hands. "I thought people stopped saying things like that after Superman died."

Lian let out a little chuckle, then shook her head, opening the refrigerator to replace a carton of milk. When she looked back to the other girl, Iris was gazing at her, a small smile on her face.

"What?" asked Iris, sounding amused.

Lian almost rolled her eyes. "Nothing. It's just…" she paused, then asked skeptically, "What does that even mean? So Superman died that one time. So did Green Arrow. And pretty much every one of the Flashes, right? Even Batman did it. Everybody comes back, Irey."

"Not everybody," protested Iris. "Besides, that wasn't my point."

Lian sat down across from Iris and leaned towards her, her shining eyes focused on Iris and Iris alone. "Then what was?"

For a second, Iris's smile faltered, the she tore her gaze away from Lian's and shook her head, looking around. "I don't know," she said quietly. "It's just that…"

She looked up at the other girl.

"This is real, Lian," she said seriously. "We're not fighting some C-list bad guy with a funny name and theme weapons. Somebody took Sin _out_."

"I know that," replied Lian indignantly. "You don't think I know that?"

There was a silence. And then Iris continued, "I think it's important to…be ready. In all ways possible." She paused, then continued, "You know, like, making sure your friends know you love them and everything. And making any last-minute, eleventh-hour confessions. You know. Stuff like that."

Iris stood up abruptly and threw her apple core into the trash, then stood there in silence. Lian didn't turn to look at her. There was a deep, heavy tension in the air, and it terrified the older girl.

But then Lian glanced around and smiled at Iris. "Is that why you're staying over tonight?" she asked, and there was a kind of bitterness in her voice.

Iris half-shrugged. "Kind of," she replied. "Mostly I just need the equipment Jai and I moved over here. I could've brought it home, but I thought it might be good to spend some time with you tonight. It must be pretty hectic to be a part of your family right now."

"Says the girl with two speedsters in hers," replied Lian.

"You know what I mean," said Iris, the smile returning to her face. "Sin still hasn't woken up yet, has she?"

"No," answered Lian, ducking her gaze again. "She's comatose. But the doctors say she's improving."

"That's encouraging."

"My dad's still pretty neurotic about it, though. But he was kind of like that with me before all this so…" she shook her head slightly. "I love him, but half the time I can't stand him. Sleeping here keeps me sane."

"I know what you mean," said Iris. "My family means the world to me, but they drive me up the wall."

Lian smiled, the blush returning to her cheeks. "Even your brother?"

"_Especially_ my brother. I'd kill myself ten times over for that boy, but sometimes he's just a teenaged boy and hey, what can you do?"

With a laugh, Lian stood up straight. "So how do you suggest we spend the night? Fighting crime or enjoying the sleepover?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Iris, yawning. "I've got to go to sleep before midnight tonight, I swear. Can't keep running without enough rest."

An odd look passed over Lian's face, then evaporated. "That's no fun. Come on, let's watch crappy movies and eat popcorn or something. We deserve it."

Iris looked at Lian for a moment that extended just a second too long, and the silence instantly collided with them awkwardly.[L9] Lian could no longer meet Iris's gaze; she glanced out the window uncomfortably, her heart sinking into her gut, unable to stomach the look that Iris was giving her.

"That sounds great, Lian," she said kindly, letting Lian down softly. "You pick the movie. But don't blame me if I fall asleep too early. I've been so tired lately."

"Yeah," replied Lian, the unyielding smile still on her face. "Doesn't surprise me. You work yourself too hard, Irey."

"Well," said Iris, the smile returning to her lips as well. "Takes one to know one, right?"

Lian laughed, and it was easy once again, and everything, all her feelings, came flooding back with a rush of emotion like joy and elation and misery. She let Iris talk with her and laugh with her and watch dumb movies from their childhood together, but there was some kind of invisible wall there, something Lian erected around her heart to guard herself. It was easier that way, she told herself. It would hurt less that way.

Thousands of miles away in Gotham City, Damian Wayne was stepping into the garage – not the garage of the Batcave, but that of the Manor itself, which held all their regular, civilian cars. Most of them were expensive and not the least inconspicuous; he glanced at the names as he inspected the key hooks, picking one at the bottom belonging to a car that wasn't especially gaudy. He had no desire to attract attention to himself tonight.

Just as he closed his hand around the key, a familiar voice asked, "What are you doing?"

Damian turned around, looking up at his father in the entrance to the garage. "Choosing a car," replied the boy, holding up the key.

"For what?"

"I thought I'd head up to New York," Damian replied smoothly. "Spend a night or two with Dick."

Bruce descended the short staircase from the entrance, to stand just before Damian. "Did he ask you to come?"

"No," said Damian. "But you know what he says. I'm always welcome."

"Why tonight?"

Damian shrugged. "Haven't seen him in a while. I get lonely."

The boy's humor was too dry, and it came off more as a venomous stab. "You've gone without seeing him for more than a few weeks before."

Damian cocked his head slightly, but contained his frustration and impatience. "Maybe I just want to talk to him."

"You could call him." They both heard what he didn't say. _Or talk to me._

Glancing down, breaking eye contact with his face, Damian lowered his voice and said, "This isn't about you."

"I didn't say it was."

"Neither did-" Damian broke off, something like a confused frown on his face. "It doesn't matter. May I leave?"

Bruce looked at him thoughtfully, then at the cards in the garage. "I don't know," he said, but there was a hint of something else in his voice, something much lighter. "The entire country still thinks you were driving while under the influence a few weeks ago. What would it say about my responsibility as a father if you were caught-"

With a judgmental but amused, "_Tt_," Damian rolled his eyes and brushed past his father, heading down the line of cars.

"I'm serious," called Bruce. "Don't get your picture taken."

"I'll try not to."

"_No _extra attention to yourself. The last thing we need is some reporter getting knee-deep in Dick's life as well."

"I know, I know." He turned around, walked backwards for a few paces. "I'm the _responsible _son, remember?"

A smile almost flickered across Bruce's face. "Of course you are. How could I forget?"

Damian grinned at his father, then turned, unlocking and slipping into one of the lower-key cars in the garage. He glanced to the backseat, where he'd placed a small bag of supplies earlier. It was rare that he drove to Dick's place in New York, but this wasn't his first visit. It had been a while, perhaps, but a few years ago, when Dick retired as Batman and returned to his role as Nightwing, Damian would visit often. Alfred drove him, or Dick came down to Gotham and picked him up for a few nights, but, by himself, Damian drove steadily, racing down the highways as if it were second nature.

It was late in the evening that Damian reached the door to Dick's apartment. It wasn't in the particularly poor part of town, but Damian was still slightly put off by how _common_ it seemed, in the middle of a hundred buildings just like it. He knocked a few times. There was nothing, then the sound of somebody shuffling around inside. Damian knocked again.

The door opened halfway, and Dick peered out at him, his eyes squinting slightly, as if blinded by the light. When he saw Damian, something like surprise rose across his face. "What are you doing here?" he asked, sounding confused.

"I need a favor…" Damian paused, leaning forward to glance into the apartment. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No," said Dick quickly. "Of course not. I just-" He glanced behind him, then looked back at Damian and said, "Can you hold on for like one second, please?"

Damian raised a skeptical eyebrow, but agreed nonetheless. "Sure," he replied, as Dick half closed the door and disappeared back into the apartment.

"Stay right there!" he called. "Just a second!"

Dick tugged all the info about his case off the wall, taking care to remove everything with Iris's name on it especially. "What are you doing?" called Damian from the door, sounding amused. "Is there a woman in there or something?"

"Yeah," answered Dick, dumping the mess into a closet. "Or something." He returned to the door and smiled at Damian. "Well," he said. "Come on in."

They entered Dick's apartment; Damian tried to keep the disdainful expression off his face, but Dick caught it. Ignoring that, Dick asked, "So what brings you out here? Aren't you supposed to be working on that triple murder thing?"

"I'm between cases, actually," replied Damian, his eyes raking around the dirty apartment. "Abuse and I took care of that last night."

"Great. That's great. How's Colin doing? I haven't seen that kid in forever."

"He's fine. He's improved incredibly. Did I tell you I changed my patrol route? He takes care of his neighborhood on his own. He bridges into the Huntress's territory slightly, but she allows it. She's fond of him, I think."

"Doesn't she teach at his school?"

Damian nodded. "Exactly." He paused, then continued, "Anyway, this isn't only a social visit. I need something."

"Aw, and I was so hoping we could sit down and talk about our feelings," said Dick, feigning disappointment. Then he grinned and asked, "What do you need, kiddo?"

The younger man bristled slightly at the sobriquet, but looked at Dick seriously and said, "I need the keys to the penthouse."

Dick stared at him. "The Wayne Tower penthouse?" he asked uncertainly. "Couldn't you just ask your dad?"

He shook his head. "He wouldn't understand."

"Yeah, neither do I," replied Dick. "What do you need the penthouse for?"

For a long moment, Damian didn't say anything, looking away from Dick. He bit his lip thoughtfully, then straightened up slightly and returned his gaze to Dick's. To Dick's surprise, there was a hint of pride in the boy's eyes. "Iris and I are…having a date."

Dick looked at him blankly for a moment, then asked, "A date?" Damian nodded. "And you really didn't think Bruce would understand?"

Damian shook his head.

Dick almost laughed. "You got your old man pegged all wrong, kid," he said. "The guy's a big softie. But sure, whatever. When do you need it?"

"Tonight," replied Damian.

"Tonight?" echoed Dick. He paused, then asked, "All night?"

Damian nodded. "Yes."

"Alright," said Dick fairly. "Well, I'm happy to help. I hope you two crazy kids enjoy yourselves." He paused, then continued, "Are you sure you don't need anything else? You know, like advice?" Damian shook his head. "…Condoms?"

"I think we're prepared," said Damian, before the suggestion had even completely left Dick's lips. "Thank you."

"If you say so," Dick replied. "And why did you wait until now to ask for the keys? I could've given them to you like last week or something."

"I wasn't that sure you'd agree," said Damian. "I was prepared to steal the key. I thought you'd notice if it was gone too long."

"Smart," said Dick, "but unnecessary. Here."

He bent over and tugged the grate off a vent in the wall at ground level, then tugged out a thick safe. Grinning up at Damian, he said, "Can't be too careful."

"Right," replied Damian as Dick spun the lock, then opened it. He pulled out a thin plastic card and tossed it to Damian.

"That only gets you into the elevator," said Dick. "Usually there's another passcode and voice recognition, but it's been a while and I'm not sure you're in the system. But there's an override somewhere, let me double-check that for you."

He ducked out of the room, his laptop computer in the other room. Turning it on and passing the triple-encryption Tim had set up for him, he checked the override keycode.

Alone in the other room, Damian took a few steps to the wall. A torn scrap of paper was taped there; Damian knew that Dick sometimes displayed his cases across a wall like this, so he called, "Are you working a case?"

"What?" replied Dick distractedly from the other room. Then Damian's words registered in his mind and, alarmed, he headed back into the other room, laptop in arm. "No," he said quickly. "No, not really. Just your typical crime-fighting, you know, nothing special. Here, here's the codes, two of them. Passcode's 326426. Vocal override DC27-B655. Need me to write that down?"

"No," said Damian. "I'll remember."

He looked at Dick, then back at the paper on the wall. He reached up and tore it from the tape, then held it up.

"What is this?" he asked, and there was a weakness in his voice that Dick wasn't accustomed to.

"Nothing," said Dick, glancing at the thing. "It's not impor-"

Damian's reaction to the paper finally clicked, and he let out a slow breath.

"Look, Damian," he said steadily, "this isn't what it looks like."

"Are you investigating my mother?" asked Damian, still clutching the scrap of a transfer record with the words, '_HEAD, TALIA_' clearly printed on it. "Why didn't you tell me? Does my father know about this?"

"No," said Dick, trying to reassure him calmly. "No, hold on."

"I thought we agreed not to keep things about my family from me," Damian continued, a dangerous note entering his voice. "I thought, after what happened last time, we _all _agreed to that."

"This isn't about your family," said Dick firmly. "I promise."

Damian met his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. "Then explain."

Dick didn't reply immediately. Then he set down his computer and said, "Damian, I'm working on your case."

"My case?"

"Your team's."

Damian nodded. "You think my mother is responsible."

"Not really," Dick said. "If anything, I think she's just the supplier."

"Supplier?" He paused, then asked, "You think the toxin in Sin is my mother's?"

"Basically, yes," replied Dick. "But I don't think she's a part of this beyond that."

"So where does that leave you?"

Dick didn't reply.

"Do you have a suspect?"

Nothing. Dick took a long, deep breath.

Fear spiked in Damian's chest. "Is it me?" he asked. "Am I the suspect?"

"No," said Dick. "I promise you're not."

"Then who?"

Silently, Dick wrestled with his conscience. "Can I trust you?" he asked Damian.

"You don't even have to ask," replied Damian seriously. "And if it's…if it's somebody that I know, then you _need _to tell me."

Dick nodded gravely, then finally said, "Damian…we're keeping our eye on Iris right now. We don't know anything for sure, but if I'm right about her then she's got the power. So be careful tonight. If she hurts you-"

"_What?_"

Damian gaped at Dick.

"_Iris?_" Dick didn't reply, suddenly anxious. Damian shook his head. "No," he said. "You're not serious, right? No, it's not Iris. Of course it's not Iris."

"I'm just saying, it could be."

"No, it couldn't," Damian shot back. "You think you know her better than I do? No, you don't, because _nobody_knows her better than I do, and she would – she would _never_-" He paused, collecting himself, then he looked back at Dick and continued quietly, "Iris has the kindest, gentlest soul I have ever encountered. She is completely incapable of this."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! Why wouldn't I be sure?"

"Damian, calm down. You're letting your feelings get in the way of this one, and we can't afford that."

"I'm being perfectly rational."

"No, you're not. Look at this logically for a second," Dick urged him. "Think of what she can _do_."

Damian was silent for a long moment. And then, suspiciously, he asked, "Then why are you even allowing me to be alone with her tonight? Aren't you afraid she'll attack me?"

"I don't think so," replied Dick. "It doesn't fit, and it'd be too obvious." He paused, then added, "Besides, I know you can take care of yourself. Like you said, nobody knows her better than you do. I bet you know her weaknesses too."

Damian closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly. "I can't believe this."

"It's just a theory," said Dick. "But it makes sense, and I know you know that, even if you don't want to admit it."

"Whatever," Damian shot back, shaking his head. "You're wrong. But it doesn't matter. She didn't do anything, so I'm not worried."

The boy headed to the door. "Damian," said Dick, almost painfully. "Damian, wait."

He stopped, but didn't turn around.

"Just because you love someone," said Dick slowly, "doesn't mean they're always innocent."

"I don't want to hear this."

"It's not a reflection on you, if she's implicated. You didn't know. Nobody's going to judge you-"

"This isn't about me!"

Damian turned to face Dick, his anger written plainly across her face.

"I don't care about _me_," he said emphatically. "I just can't believe you'd even suggest this. Iris? Of everyone on the team, _Iris?_" His right hand went to the hem of his left sleeve, and he wrenched it up his arm to his elbow. "Do you see this?" he asked venomously, through gritted teeth. "Would she do _this _to me?"

Dick stared at the letters carved into Damian's skin – fading into scars, now – and took an unsteady step towards him. "Jesus," he murmured. "What are-"

"I got these the night of Sin's attack," he said lowly. "This is what _my _team has been working on. Trying to figure out who this Bagheera is, and why they want all of us dead. There. You have a lead. Now do your job. And do it _right_."

Damian shook his head, his hand on the door.

"You can do so much better," he said, and he was gone.

Dick stood there alone for a long time, Damian's words ringing in his ears.

The penthouse of Wayne Tower was not unlike Damian remembered it. Admittedly it had been years since he'd lived there, as the Robin to Dick's Batman, but it still seemed hauntingly familiar, as if from a memory of a different life. He still felt his time with Dick had been cut short. He wandered through the place nostalgically, silent memories of how pathetically bratty he'd been then playing through his mind.

He paused, reaching out to run his fingertips along the marble countertops in the kitchen. He hadn't turned the lights on and the sun had gone down a while ago, but the darkness suited him, and he let the moment press against him, burying the sting of the night weight deep inside of him. He kept the darkness inside of him, a delicate globe in his soul, a reminder of his legacy and what it meant to be both an al Ghul and a Wayne.

Then there were arms wrapped around his body, fingers pressed against his chest, but they weren't threatening – they were warm and soft, and he closed his eyes, recognizing by touch the body pressed to his back.

"Hello, lover," whispered Iris, her lips brushing against his ear.

He took hold of her hands and brought them to his lips. "You didn't need the key?"

"Do I ever?"

Damian didn't reply to that immediately. He kissed her fingers, opening his eyes in the darkness. Then he pulled away from her slightly and turned around to embrace her; their lips met briefly, a greeting unto itself, and then, gazing into his eyes, she told him, "I would've been here sooner, but Lian was at the Tower and I never spend any time with her anymore and she's so amazing, I love her so much, so we hung out for a while and I feel so bad about ditching her so I told her I was just going to sleep, but I locked my door so she won't know, I just have to be back in the morning."

"I'm sure we can manage that," he replied quietly, entwining his fingers with hers. "Did you and Lian talk?"

"A lot, yeah," said Iris, "but not about you-know-what. It's really frustrating because I keep giving her opportunities to talk to me about it but it's like she's literally just ignoring it at this point. And that bothers me. It's exhausting to keep pretending like all that sexual tension just doesn't exist."

"Imagine how difficult it must be for her. She can't even tell you."

"I don't see why not," sighed Iris. "If she could just talk about it, then maybe we could figure something out."

Damian raised an eyebrow. "Figure something out? Need I remind you you're already _in_ a relationship?"

"I know." She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him completely, her chin resting on his shoulder. "I'm just not sure sometimes."

"Not sure?" asked Damian, alarm rising in his stomach. "Not sure of what?"

"Oh, you know," she replied, pulling away, meeting his gaze again. "Lian's so wonderful, and she's funny and smart and down-to-earth and _really_ pretty…" She paused, and at the look on Damian's face, she added, "Not to say that you aren't any of those things, though." She grinned at him. "You're very pretty, Damian."

He rolled his eyes. "Do we need to have a conversation about this?" he asked, too seriously. "Right now?"

"No," she replied, taking his face in her hands. "No, not right now. Of course not. Right now there is only you and me. I promise." She leaned in and kissed him, slowly this time, savoring the feeling of his warm mouth on hers. Then she pulled back and looked around. "So this is where you used to live, hmm?" she asked, letting him go and taking a few steps away. "Very nice."

"I was only here for a year or so," he told her. "When Dick left, we returned to the mansion."

"Do you like it better there?"

Damian shrugged. "I suppose. It feels more fitting for a Bat."

"What does that mean? You like the Cave better?"

"Yes. I always felt the Bunker was…lacking."

She turned back to him, her eyes glinting. "The Bunker?" she asked, excitement snaking into her voice. "Where is that?"

"Underneath the Tower."

"Can you take me there?"

"Maybe," he said. "Why?"

"You don't think it'd be fun to make out in the Batmobile?"

Damian held back a laugh. "We moved the Batmobiles back to the Cave. We only store reserve vehicles in the Bunker."

"I'm sure we could find _some _way to have fun…"

"Maybe some other time," Damian replied, taking her hand and pulling her close to him again. "Tonight, we're not Robin and Impulse. I don't want it to be that way. It's just you and me."

Iris smiled, meeting his gaze. She pressed her forehead against his. "If you say so," she breathed, her hands caressing his neck, "…Boy Wonder."

As the night wore on, somewhere over the Midwestern Plains, Chris Kent – Superboy – was hovering carefully, deliberately, watching the fireflies glowing around him. It was a particularly beautiful night; the moon hung big and silver in the sky, the stars blinking in and out, looking close enough to touch. Chris wondered how many of those stars his adoptive father had passed in his journeys. He wondered how many he would get the chance to touch.

It was difficult, on nights like these, not to think of Thara. Of Flamebird and Nightwing, of their tragic story and their epic love. The things he had seen, the stories he'd heard, they haunted him on nights like these, lying low, suspended just above the ground. He liked to be in the sky, high enough that they couldn't touch him.

Chris liked spending time with his family, and he especially liked being with the other Titans, but nothing was so mournfully soothing to him as being by himself. Although he was never completely alone; he could hear for miles, he could hear the crickets chirp and the fireflies gently humming and the grass rustle as small creatures made their way through it. He could hear the livestock in the farm sixty miles away, and he could hear the creaks of the old house settling and the gentle sighs of the people in their beds. If he listened hard enough, he could hear people talking all over the world, and if he really looked he could see straight through the Earth. Being in the sun made him strong. Being under the moon, on the other hand, made him calm.

Then, the deafening roar of a body approaching, a voice gently saying, "_There _you are…" and the stinging, vicious sensation only one substance on Earth could cause, and there was nothing he could do.

In Gotham, Iris's fingers were splayed across Damian's chest; she could feel his heartbeat, the way it desperately tried to keep up with her own and couldn't, not without exploding-

-exploding with pain, a thousand nerves Chris didn't know he had lighting up, sending agonizing shots of fire through his entire body, burning like-

-like the friction between skin, like her fingers curling on his chest, like when her nails dug into his skin and tiny droplets of blood appeared there, and his eyes were closed, and he was seeing-

- bright lights, like the stars above his head, explosions of white and red behind his eyelids, and he had been tortured before, abused before, but nothing like this, nothing like the poison of-

-another kiss on his hot mouth, and she giggled-

-laughed _laughed_, laughing at him-

-because there was _nothing_ like this, nothing like watching him melt beneath her, surrendering everything that he fought so hard to maintain, his power, his control-

-the ability to even _lift his head_, to open his mouth, to do anything but lie there, muscles seizing, his chest rising and falling irregularly, blood dripping onto the dirt, soaking into the earth, draining him-

-as she took her hand away from his chest, revealing her deep red handprint there, and her very _atoms_ sped up and he threw his head back, exposing the soft, precious flesh of his throat, and then he-

-_screamed_.

By the time the Man of Steel made it to the wide, open plain in the early hours before morning, having come from across the world upon hearing the scream, that voice he knew too, too well, Chris Kent was alone again, an immobile tangle of limbs and blood upon the ground. A sort of panic Clark was almost unfamiliar with rose in his own body, so strong that it burned, until he could no longer stay in the air, and he collided roughly with the earth mere feet away from his son, reaching a shaking hand out to the boy.

He could see the individual particles of kryptonite floating in the air, and he didn't breathe, covering his mouth with his cape, his heart thumping in his chest – he was unable to think about himself, only Chris, the _child_ lying on the ground before him – gone, for all he knew, gone and _dead_-

He held his JLA communicator in his trembling hands, reciting a silent prayer to Rao as he spoke into it: "This is Superman. I need…help."

In less than a minute, a blur of red in the darkness. "…Oh, _God_."

"Wally," muttered Clark, his hands stained red with Chris's blood, "take him."

"Where?" asked Wally, gathering the boy in his arms, the flicker of fear disappearing from his face.

"The…" Clark hesitated, then bowed his head. "The Batcave. Go. Go!"

Wally was already gone. Strength leaked back into Clark's body, and he hit an emergency sequence into his communicator, one he had hoped he wouldn't have to use for a long time.

"Bruce," he said, his voice heavy. "Bruce, you were right. Chris has been hit. I'm sending him to you." He paused, a black spot pulsing through his vision, the vestiges of kryptonite in the air disrupting his balance.

"Help him…"


	7. Submit

Chapter Seven: Submit

"_Cease then, nor order imperfection name:  
Our proper bliss depends on what we blame.  
Know thy own point: This kind, this due degree  
Of blindness, weakness, Heav'n bestows on thee.  
Submit."  
_-Alexander Pope, from An Essay on Man, Epistle I, x.

Superman's whole body shook as he stood in the Batcave, leaning heavily on the seat Batman usually took. Bruce glanced up. "You shouldn't be here," he growled.

"Is he going to be alright?" pressed Clark, ignoring Bruce's comment.

The other man didn't reply. The boy was lying in the artificial sunbed, Alfred's steady hands plucking shards of kryptonite from his skin with a set of surgical tweezers.

"If we can remove the kryptonite," Bruce replied, "then it's just a matter of recovery. Intense solar radiation therapy will do the rest of the work."

"If you can remove the kryptonite, what do you mean _if _you can remove the kryptonite?"

"Give us time," replied Bruce lowly.

"_Time?_" echoed Clark, and his voice boomed throughout the cave in a way he hadn't intended. "How much time? How long?"

"I don't know," said Bruce, his voice much quieter than Clark's but no less fearsome. "All we know right now is whoever's targeting the Titans is strong enough to take out a Kryptonian. We have no idea what kind of power we may be dealing with. Get the team."

"Wally's contacted Roy, Buddy and Jaime, they can gather the kids. I'm staying _right here_ until-"

Bruce held out a threatening palm just above Clark's chest. "Collect the team," he said lowly, dangerously. "Get them off-planet as soon as possible."

"We already decided-"

"You want to catch whoever did this to Chris?"

Superman fell silent, then nodded.

"Then _collect," _Bruce said slowly, intensely, "_the team._"

Understanding dawned in Clark's eyes, and then his face fell darklY. He said nothing, then, "Is this it? Are we really going to accuse our own children?"

"No," replied Bruce bluntly. "Not yours, anyway. I know one thing for certain: your son is innocent."

And then Batman left, returning to the boy's side, taking a sharp, glinting scalpel from the surgical table beside the sun bed. Clark lingered for just a moment; it was nearly an imperceptible microsecond to Bruce, but in that millionth of a second Clark saw past the other man's steely, silent exterior, and he witnessed the fear there. The fear of a father for his son.

Dread writhing in the pit of his stomach, Superman left, extending a call to the entire Justice League. At the end of the message, he added painfully: "_Bring the kids_."

Iris's transmitter went off first, the loud, obnoxious beeping piercing through the darkness and their hazy bliss. "Don't answer it," said Damian lustily, reaching out to hold her, but she batted his arms away and picked it up.

"Jai?"

"No, hon, it's Daddy. Are you okay?"

Instantly, Iris was completely awake. "Yeah. Of course. It's the middle of the night, what's up?"

"Roy's en route to the Tower, he's gonna take you and Lian up to the Watchtower."

"At four in the morning? What's going on?"

"There's been another attack."

Iris's blood froze in her veins. She looked up and locked eyes with Damian, who was peering at her, suddenly alert. "Who?"

"Chris."

She swore. "And you're-"

"-getting Jai and your mom, yeah. I'm not leaving them down here alone. Roy should be there any minute now. I love you, honey."

"Love you too, Daddy. I'll see you soon."

The communicator went silent, and Iris swore again and again. "I have to go," she said, and Damian blinked and she was completely dressed. "Like, right now. Wish I could stay, but I-"

"No!" said Damian urgently.

"Damian!" she responded indignantly. "This is an _emergency_! Didn't you hear my dad? Chris is-"

"No, no, you need to go," interrupted Damian, "I'm sure my father will be contacting me very soon as well. But let me let you out."

Her brow was furrowed in confusion. "What?" she asked.

Damian stared at her, his magnetic gaze unavoidable. Lowly, he said, "Let the cameras see you."

The implication in his words washing over her, she shook her head, her expression melting into one bordering on fear. "No," she said. "That isn't necessary-"

"If they find out you weren't in your bedroom last night," he continued, his voice hushed, "then you _need _an alibi."

"Alibi?" she echoed, outrageous disbelief in her voice. "How could you say that? I thought we agreed that _nobody _on the team-"

"Irey!" he said loudly, over her voice, getting out of bed, heading towards the door; she followed. "Look," he continued as they reached the elevator, in clear view of the cameras. "I'm not saying anyone on the team did _anything_. I trust all of you. Absolutely. But they-" Iris glanced uneasily at the cameras, and he added, "Don't worry, there's no audio. But they suspect _you, _Iris. _You._"

She stared at him. "Who does?" she demanded.

He hesitated. "I don't know," he lied. "I just – I only overheard…" he trailed off, then punched a code into the elevator. "You need to go," he said. "You've been here, on the record. You're good, go, go."

She nodded, staring into his eyes. She took hold of him physically, pulled his shoulders in, and kissed him deeply.

He hesitated, his cheek touching hers. Then he whispered, "Goodbye…beloved."

She pulled away and met his gaze, her eyes open and wide and honest, then she was gone.

Damian stood there a moment, still half-dazed, and then he jumped in surprise as a loud ringing filled the empty rooms. Slowly, a chill running down his body, he reached for the nearest telephone set. "Hello?"

"Yo, Damian," came Dick's familiar voice, but it was tinged with a hint of worry. "Bruce just radioed me, you need to get back here right now."

"You?" asked Damian. "Why didn't he contact me directly?"

"I don't know," replied Dick, "just get over here. Are you still with-"

"Iris just left."

Dick was silent, and Damian heard what he was thinking.

"She was with me the whole time," he added defiantly, as if challenging Dick, daring him to say something.

"Right," said Dick. "Right. Just come back."

In the Watchtower, the team – the six of them, Damian, Iris, Jai, Lian, Maxine and Milagro – was herded into the main conference room. One wall was made of insulated glass, and Damian stood at this window, his palm pressed against the cool pane, inches away from the forbidding vacuum of space. The rest of the team sat around the table, in the seats branded with the names of the Justice League. Iris sat in her father's place, and Jai sat beside her, Wonder Woman's symbol carved behind his head. Lian sat on the other side of Iris, in Red Arrow's spot; Maxine sat beside her, in Vixen's place and Milagro rested defiantly at the end, in her brother's seat. The Green Lantern symbol stared at her blankly from across the table, and her eyes focused on that resolutely.

There was silence. Then Maxine asked, "He's gonna be okay, right?"

Nobody answered.

"He's Kryptonian," she stressed. "You can't hurt Chris. That's like hurting Superman."

"Superman's died before," murmured Milagro darkly.

"Yeah," said Maxine. "But he came back to life. Everybody's coming back, aren't they? Sin? And Chris? They'll be okay, right?" She looked around at the rest of them desperately, then turned around to face the vast expanse of space behind them. "I mean, Damian's okay, right? And he got hurt too, but he's okay."

An iciness ran through the room. Damian looked back at all of them, his face tight and expressionless. For a moment, he was no longer a part of them.

Looking at Lian and Milagro, who were watching Damian with an accusation in her eyes, Iris said, "Stop it. We do _not _self-destruct, not right now, not after this. What would Chris say?"

"Chris was the best of us," replied Lian, not taking her eyes off Damian. "Questioning his friends would never even occur to him." She paused, then said, "Fortunately none of us are as strong as he was."

"I want to go home," said Jai.

"Me too," said Maxine.

"No," said Jai. "You're – I'm not even a _part _of this."

"Of course you are," said Iris, reaching out to take his hand. "You're my brother."

"I'm not a part of the team," replied Jai, taking his hand away from her. "Publically, I mean. But since I'm here – since you're all treating me like I am…" he trailed off, shaking his head. "I'm not a part of this," he repeated.

Concern and pain shadowed Iris's face. Much more, Damian noted, than he had ever seen her express when they were together. His heart felt low in his stomach, making him nauseous.

The doors to the conference room opened, and Superman entered; following him came the respective relatives of each member of the Teen Titans except the Batman, as well as the JLA's Green Lantern, John Stewart, and Wonder Woman. Milagro and Jai stood up, as if to offer their seats to their elders, but Wonder Woman said, "Please, sit."

"Robin," said Superman, "I apologize, but your father has sent word to start without him. He's looking after Superboy. I'm sure he'll be here soon."

"Start what?" asked Jai. "Is this going to be some kind of interrogation?"

"No," said the Flash. "But you're concerned in this, and we aren't about to exclude you from the investigation."

"What investigation?" challenged Lian. "All this _we're-just-doing-this-to-protect-you _business is a total joke."

"We ask that you cooperate just a while longer," continued Superman. "With our resources and yours, we'll be that much closer to finding who did this."

"This isn't an isolated incident anymore," said Milagro. "Two of our team are in critical condition right now, and you're wasting time giving us a talking-to."

"We don't mean to waste anybody's time," said Superman. "Now we're going to ask to speak to you individually. Any information is relevant to protect both you and your teammates. So please-"

"Why do you want to see us alone?" asked Maxine, her voice shaking slightly. "We should be together."

"This may be true, but-"

There was a slight cough from behind Superman. He glanced around to see Buddy Baker returning his gaze apologetically.

"Animal Man," said Superman graciously, gesturing towards the younger team. "Please, go ahead."

The man looked at his daughter tenderly and said, "We're not trying to split you up or pit you against each other. But sometimes it's just easier to speak freely when you're not around your peers."

"I think we can speak perfectly freely like this," said Iris belligerently. "Whatever any of us have to say, it's nothing that can't be said in front of the team."

Then Milagro said, "Hold on."

Everyone looked to her.

There was a slightly look of apprehension on her face, then it disappeared. "It might be better if we could speak alone," she admitted, looking around at them. "I mean. I'd hate to see somebody's feelings get hurt."

"What does that mean?" asked Lian, her eyes narrowed.

"It means," Milagro continued, gaining confidence, "that I'm not going to lie and say that there's no cause for suspicion in the team. Because that's what they're really asking, and you know what, it's true. Nobody's saying it, but everybody knows."

"Knows what?" asked Lian dangerously. Milagro met her gaze, then her eyes slid across the room to where Damian stood by the window.

"Everybody knows there are only a couple significant sources of kryptonite left on Earth," she said toughly, turning back to the Justice League. "Lex Luthor has access to much of it, but forgive me if I don't blame him this _one _time. The second major supply, as _everybody_ knows, belongs to Batman."

"You think _Batman_ did this?" asked Iris, shock evident in her voice.

"No," replied Milagro sharply. "I think Robin did."

There was a long, tense silence. "Please," said Superman. "Let's not go jumping to any conclusions. I know today has been stressful, but there's no need to-"

"He has a history," said Milagro, her voice steely and convincing. "And God knows he spends most of his days reminding us just how much _better_ than us he really is."

"That's ridiculous," interjected Iris. "That's not even…" She was surprised to find herself suddenly on her feet, shaking in anger. "Robin," she said, looking back at Damian. "Tell them that's absurd."

Damian said nothing, only glowered at the League.

"Tell them!" Iris repeated, louder now. When Damian said nothing, she turned to the adults and said, "He couldn't have done it. He was-"

"Impulse."

It was the first word Damian had spoken, and it was full of uncharacteristic emotion, as if he were holding back a thousand pulsing thoughts just behind his tongue.

She was instantly beside Damian's side, so fast that even Wally hardly caught her moving. Leaning her head in close to his, she murmured, "You were right, as usual. Let's just tell them and be done with this."

Superman, of course, heard all of this. "Impulse?" he asked. "Robin? Is there something you'd like to share?"

"Yes," said Iris, at the same time that Damian muttered, "No."

They glared at each other. Then Damian turned back to face the League, and he strode over to the table where the others sat, his hands reaching out almost protectively to hold the sides of Lian's and Maxine's seats. Lian watched him, eyes narrowed, Maxine staring as well, her eyes open and wide.

"I think it's funny," he said sharply, the last word slicing its way out of his mouth, as if to cut them apart, "that we're the only ones quarantined here today."

Superman watched him warily. "What are you-"

"Take me, for example," he continued, ignoring Superman's comment. "Could I somehow be responsible for what happened to Sin and Superboy? Perhaps. But to what end? For what _purpose_ would I attack my own team? My…" he hesitated, and glanced around, then looked back at the adults steadily. "Say what you will," he said, firmer now. "But they are my friends."

"We aren't accusing any-"

"Well you _should _be accusing!" shouted Damian, and then he pulled away and closed his eyes, having not meant to raise his voice. "You should be pointing fingers," Damian continued lowly, dangerously, opening his eyes to stare at Superman, a fire smoldering deep within his eyes. "There are other options."

"We have a list of suspects," said Superman, and his voice was almost cold. "I know you know that, Robin. Your father-"

"My father," Damian spat venomously. "My father doesn't know this team! None of you do! You don't know – you don't _see_-" his voice faded, unable to find the words, and then, his voice rising again, "Why are you above suspicion? If we're a possibility, why not you? Everyone knows that Superboy had enemies _much _closer to home."

Superman's eyes flashed. "Just what are you implying, son?"

"His namesake," Damian pressed, even as Maxine whimpered slightly and Iris was by his side, reaching out to touch his shoulder, muttering, "Dami, don't…" He shook her off roughly and said loudly, "Shut up, Iris."

Anger framed in a single word, a threatening, "_Hey_," came from the adults. Damian glanced up to lock eyes with Iris's father, then tore his gaze away to look back to Superman.

"The previous Superboy," Damian continued, his voice slightly more in control. "Everyone knows how uncomfortable Chris felt around him. And I'm sure you know the grudge he held."

"Stop," said Superman sharply. "This is out of hand."

"And we all know what could've happened to me," he continued determinedly. "I'll the first to admit contention within my own family. When I was injured, why wasn't Red Robin questioned?" He paused, then added, "For all we know, Nightwing could be-"

"You don't know what you're saying," said Red Arrow suddenly, talking a step forward. "You're shooting in the dark, kid."

"Don't make me start on _your_ family, Arrow," Damian shot back. "Sin never had a place with any of you. You used her for-"

"How dare you," said Black Canary, reaching a trembling hand to clutch Red Arrow's shoulder, joining him. "How _dare_ you. Sin is my _daughter_-"

"She's a weapon," hissed Damian, "a weapon you chose with the intent to tame. You keep her as a _convenience_, not for any-"

There was a loud, solid _crack_ as Lian's fist connected with Damian's jaw. The force of the blow sent him reeling backwards, staggering before he caught his footing again. He stood up straight, meeting Lian's burning eyes. His gaze never leaving Lian's, he turned his head slightly and spit a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

"You don't know anything," said Lian, her voice shaking. "You don't understand _anything. _Just because – just because _your _family treats you like the weapon you are doesn't mean everyone's as cold as the Batman is, you son of a-"

"I'm trying to protect you," uttered Damian, jabbing his finger sharply into his chest. He held his finger out to point at the League and said, loudly, "I would fight _all _of them to protect _any _of you."

"We're not trying to fight you, Robin," said Superman, his voice overpowering Damian's. "Nobody wants that."

"_I _do!"

He gazed at the League, challenging them.

"I would give my life for this team," he said roughly. "But believe me when I say that first I would give _all _of yours."

"This is unacceptable," said Wonder Woman, stepping forward. "I will not tolerate any _threats_ in this room, Robin."

"Oh, believe me, Princess," replied Damian, "you'll know when I'm threatening you."

The room burst into a collision of voices and protests; every parent called out to their child, and those members who weren't yelling at Damian, demanding respect, turned to Superman or to each other, heatedly disagreeing about the best course of action. Jai collapsed his head into his arms on the table, Lian stood before Damian, her fists still clenched, ready to fight at any moment, Maxine turned and kneeled in her seat to yell at Damian, her face flushed with anger and fear, and Milagro took a few deep breaths, rubbing her forehead, as if struggling to deal with the situation. Iris just stood frozen by the table, looking back at Damian silently.

"_Jesus_, Damian," muttered Milagro, furious, as she abandoned her seat and approached him, taking him sharply by the shoulder. "Will you have some respect? This is the _Justice League_ we're talking to-"

"Consider for a moment how _easy _it would be for one of them to-"

"The stress finally got to you, didn't it," she said, shaking her head aggressively. "You've lost it. Just sit down, Damian. They can help you."

He pushed her violently, and she was thrown to the ground several feet away from him; the Blue Beetle's voice, for the first time, rang out clearly through the room as he shouted her name, and then he was in the air, almost at her side – but before he reached her, a green glow surrounded her body and she rose into the air, a green construct rope stretching from her ring, surrounding Damian, covering his mouth.

"Cut it out, Damian," she said loudly, bluntly. "Right now."

"Stop it!" cried Maxine. "Milly, stop!"

"He needs to sit down and listen, for once!" continued Milagro, over the other voices. "He needs to act like a part of this team for _five seconds_-"

"You just accused him!" shouted Lian wildly. "Yeah, he's a jerk, but _what team?_ Whatever we had here ended the _second_ you sold him out!"

"Sold him out?" echoed Iris, outraged, looking to Lian as Milagro's brother rose to her level and took hold of her hand.

"Let him go," he said, firmly but soothingly. "You have to let him go, _hermanita._"

Milagro didn't move for a second, then finally she released Damian. He scowled at her viciously, baring his teeth, still stained red with blood from Lian's punch.

"I take it back," he growled lowly. "Maybe our culprit is a little closer to home, after all."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she demanded threateningly, her brother restraining her with one hand on her shoulder.

"Don't do this, guys," said Jai, looking up finally, tears in his eyes. "Don't do this now, please."

"I'm not – get _off _me, Jaime – keep talking, Robin. Give me a reason to hit you."

"I didn't attack _you_," Damian said, his eyes narrowed. "Just remember that I didn't _start_ this."

A blur of red. "Okay, that's enough."

The Flash stood in between the two of them, holding out his arms to separate them.

"The both of you, sit _down_. We're not going to resort to any more violence."

"Leave them alone."

Wally's gaze snapped over to his daughter, who was still standing by the table, her fists clenched in anger.

"This isn't your fight," she said stonily.

"Yes, it is," he replied, speaking directly to her. "You are our family."

"But this team is _ours_," she replied. "You don't get to police our every move like this."

"Irey," said Jai. "Please…"

Milagro looked around Flash to glare at Damian. "This isn't over," she said to him.

"I never said it was," he replied aggressively.

"It seems like everyone needs some rest," said Animal Man. "Why don't we all go home and do this sometime later?"

"No," protested Maxine, looking at her father desperately. "I want to stay with the team."

Her father let out a silent, pained sigh. "Honey, no good is going to come out of-"

"But I don't want to be with you," she said. "You don't believe in us." She looked at the whole League. "None of you believe in us."

There was a tense silence. Iris reached out and laid a reassuring hand on Maxine's shoulder.

Lian said, "She's right. If we leave, we're leaving together."

"Nobody's leaving just yet."

The adults parted; behind them, having slipped into the room somehow unnoticed, was Batman himself. He didn't even look at Damian, only turned his head slightly and said, "Clark. Diana. John. Come with me."

Superman met Batman's gaze, then turned back to look at the rest of the children. Then he, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern followed Bruce out.

The tension in the room eased slightly. Flash looked between Damian and Milagro, then stepped away from them to join his daughter and son. Red Arrow only had to look at Lian before she abandoned her seat and went to him and Black Canary, tiredly embracing them both. Blue Beetle finally succeeded in pulling Milagro's attention away from Damian, and Animal Man kneeled beside his daughter's seat, hugging her and then talking quietly.

Damian stood there alone, his arms his arms folded across his chest defensively.

"I feel like we should do something," muttered Roy, glancing to the boy uneasily. "Dick always says he's a good kid. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt."

Lian followed her father's gaze. "I feel bad for him," said Dinah. "Being Robin is hard enough already. At least the other ones always had their friends."

"Yeah," said Lian, her heart sinking. "Yeah. You're right." She paused, then said, "Just…give me a second, okay?"  
She left them, sidling up to Damian. "Hey," she said.

He barely glanced at her. "What do you want, Harper?"

"I just…" she trailed off, then, "She doesn't mean it. You know that, right? Milly's not actually accusing you, she's just panicking."

He didn't reply.

"You can play the strong, surly, silent type all you want," she continued, "but I know you. Maybe not like Iris does, but you and I – we're founding members of this team. I'd trust you with my life any day."

There was a pause. Damian caught her eye slightly, then flicked his gaze away. But a muffled couple of words bubbled its way up from deep within him, and he murmured, "Thank you."

Unused to sharing such a sentimental moment with Damian and feeling slightly uncomfortable, she continued, "So what do you think Batman's telling them?"

"Chris's condition," Damian replied. "My father is an expert in Kryptonian physiology. He's no doubt been working to save his life while we've been up here bickering."

"Yeah?" asked Lian, frowning slightly as she looked to the door where Batman and the others disappeared through. "Why do you think he asked to talk to Green Lantern too?"

"He asked Superman because it's his son in danger," Damian explained, irritation plain in his voice. "He asked Wonder Woman and Green Lantern because they're the only ones here without ties to our team. He wants to keep this as objective as possible."

"That's not really fair, though, is it?" asked Lian, looking back to Damian. "I mean, it's not like he can be completely objective. You're on the team."

Damian didn't reply to this, only stared at the doors, tight-lipped.

Little sobs broke the relative silence, and the Flash held his son in his arms, rubbing his back soothingly. "Shh. It's okay, Jai. Everything's okay."

The others respectfully ignored this. Iris reached out and held her brother as well, laying her head against his back, but her eyes were dry, and when her father reached to place his hand over hers, she drew away from them both.

Flash let go of his son for a moment and Iris reached out to comfort him again; in an instant, Wally was with Roy and Dinah. "Linda's up in my quarters, I'm gonna run Jai up to her. I'll be right back, but-"

"Yeah, we'll watch Iris for the whole three seconds that you'll be gone," Roy finished for him. "Go ahead."

"Give them both our love," Dinah added.

Wally nodded at the both of them and took Roy's hand briefly in a silent gesture of thanks, then went back to his son and murmured a few words to him, and was gone.

Damian's gaze was focused on Iris, sitting there alone. Lian tried not to notice or begrudge him that; he and Iris were, after all, the real couple in the group.

Maxine was talking her father, desperate frustration in her voice, Milagro quietly, heatedly talking to her brother, most of her aggression gone. A strange, swift sort of shiver went down her spine, and she couldn't look at her brother anymore, looking almost humbled as he spoke. Iris's father returned in less than a minute, and reached out to his daughter again, but she wouldn't say a word.

"Maybe you should talk to her," said Lian.

Damian didn't move his gaze. "She's angry at me."

"Isn't she always?"

He finally glanced at her. "Why aren't you with your father?"

"Why aren't you with yours?"

He shook his head, but there was something new in his expression, something that Lian wasn't used to seeing when she was around him.

The doors opened again, and Superman returned, looking grave; Batman followed directly behind him, but Wonder Woman and Green Lantern hung back by the open doors.

"Blue Beetle," said Superman, looking at Milagro. "Green Lantern. Please come with us."

"What?" asked Blue Beetle, alarmed. "What do we have to-"

"For what?" demanded Milagro. "What are you going to do to me?"

"Nothing," said John Stewart, advancing forward. "We just want to check your ring, that's all."

"Check my ring?" repeated Milagro, holding her hand to her chest. "For what?"

They said nothing. Milagro's expression turned steely.

"No," she said. "My team was right. Anything you want to do to me, you can do right here." She hesitated, then added, "I have nothing to hide from them. Or anyone."

"I understand that, but I'm really going to have to insist-"

"No," interrupted Batman. "We have to start respecting their wishes at some point, Clark." Ignoring Superman, he stepped forward. "Superboy is stable," he said, addressing the Teen Titans. "The kryptonite has been removed from his wounds, and with a few intense solar radiation sessions, he'll recover completely." He paused, letting that sink in – Maxine let out a sigh and Lian bowed her head in relief – then continued. "However, it's worth noting that the amount of kryptonite we found on him would not have been enough to cause the extent of his injury."

"So whoever hit him is still out there running around with a chunk of kryptonite big enough to take out Superman?" asked Lian. "Is there any way to track that? Don't we have a way to detect-"

"There's evidence that the additional kryptonite may have been artificial."

"Artificial?" echoed Iris. "None of us have the capabilities to manufacture kryptonite. Then we're cleared."

"No," said Damian, a look of dull horror slowly creeping across his face. "There's… green kryptonite can be synthesized with," he paused, taking a breath, his gaze searching the room and stopping, abruptly, at Milagro, "…a Lantern ring."

Maxine covered her mouth, shocked. Lian's gaze found Milagro, who was standing there, her eyes wide. Iris said immediately, "There are other Green Lanterns."

"How can you seriously accuse me of this?" she asked, her eyes narrowing again. "I have been nothing but devoted to my duty since I was _given_ this ring-"

"Where were you last night?" asked Batman, ignoring her words.

"I was-"

She stopped suddenly, a look of confusion flashing across her face.

"I was at home," she said, shaking it off. "With my parents." She looked to her brother, unease edging its way into her face. "Jaime, you were there. Tell them."

He stared at her. "Milagro," he said. "That was yesterday. You were gone by sundown."

Milagro looked at him. "No," she said, reaching out, holding onto his arms. "No. It was last night."

There was utter silence.

"Milagro," said John, "I need to examine your ring. It should tell us where you were at the time of attack."

She held her fingers protectively for a moment, then relented. "Yes," she said, sounding disordered. "Go on. Do it."

The air in the room was taut and stale, nobody daring to take a breath. John Stewart's ring glowed and a single green strand reached out to Milagro's; "Ring," he said clearly, "display location at twenty-three minutes past oh-four-hundred this morning."

A three-dimensional map appeared before Milagro, and she watched it, her eyes widening as it pinpointed a location. A simulated voice recited a set of coordinates which appeared over the map.

"Ring," the elder Green Lantern continued, his voice hard, "recreate actions at location."

A perfect green copy of Milagro appeared, slightly smaller in scale than the real Milagro. But the expression on her face was unmistakable.

A weapon sprouted from the construct's ring; it glowed bright green, brighter than the rest and Superman suddenly swayed unsteadily; Wonder Woman reached out and took hold of him, keeping him up.

The kryptonite-laden blade dug into something invisible. Giant claws, almost cartoonish, appeared and raked whatever it was that was being attacked. This went on for a few seconds, and then the construct's eyes filled with glee, and it threw its head back and silently laughed.

"Enough," said John Stewart.

No one said anything. Milagro stared at the spot where her ring had betrayed her. Jaime reached out to her. "Milagro…" he said weakly. "Milagro, how could you…"

"No," said Maxine, her cheeks wet with tears. "No!"

Lian was breathing heavily, her eyes wide, jaw dropped, staring at Milagro; she turned to Damian, whose expression was almost blank. His eyes flicked to hers once, then focused on Milagro once again. Iris had pulled herself to her feet shakily, and was clutching to her seat with one hand, the other pressed haphazardly across her lips.

The silence was deadly. Horror leaked into the room, snaking around their feet and filling their lungs. The League's Green Lantern held out his hand and said quietly, "Milagro Reyes, I'm going to have to ask you to surrender your ring."

She shook her head softly, finally looking to him, her eyes shining. "No," she said. "No. I didn't do it. I wasn't – I couldn't have-"

"The ring doesn't lie, Milagro," said Superman, steadying himself. "You constructed kryptonite."

"No!" cried Milagro. "No! I wouldn't! You have to believe me!"

"Your ring, Milagro."

She looked around desperately. Lian met her gaze, her brow gently furrowed in concern. Then she bowed her head almost imperceptibly, and Milagro turned back to John and tugged the ring off her finger, looking more defeated than any of them had ever seen her.

Jaime took her shoulder firmly and, her hands trembling madly, her eyes wet with dewy tears, she held out the ring as if giving up the ghost.

They took Milagro away without letting her speak to the team. It didn't look like she particularly wanted to. She couldn't even look them in the eye.

For a precious moment, they were left alone. To mourn, Iris supposed. Lian took her hand, and held Maxine's in her other. Maxine laid her head on the table, her eyes covered. Iris glanced around her at Damian, where he still stood, looking uncharacteristically helpless.

"Did you know?" she asked harshly.

He met her gaze. "I…" he shook his head, looking slightly dazed. "No. I was just… I didn't mean it."

"How would he have known?" asked Lian lowly. "How would any of us have known? Milagro is a Green Lantern. She had more power than any of us. But she had a responsibility that none of us could ever even-"

"I want to go home!" cried Maxine, dissolving into sobs.

Lian and Iris exchanged glances, then the dark-haired girl murmured, "I'll take her to her dad. Be right back." Iris nodded and Lian helped Maxine up, heading out of the room, whispering words of comfort to her the whole time.

The door swung shut. Iris stared at it, then finally turned her head just slightly to look at Damian. He met her gaze.

She asked, "Why didn't you just let me tell them?"

Damian looked at her, at first as if he didn't understand. "About last night?" She nodded. "You didn't need to."

"It would've cleared you. And me."

"We didn't need to be cleared."

"You told me they were suspecting _me_."

Damian couldn't answer that immediately. "I thought they were," he explained. "I was…told…"

"Told?" asked Iris, her eyes narrowing. "Who told you?"

He hesitated, then bowed his head slightly, relenting. "Nightwing."

She stared at him, her expression hardening. "Nightwing," she echoed, looking away from him and glancing to the table. "Right." She paused, then continued, "Did you consider that he maybe told you that because he doesn't like me?"

"That's impossible," replied Damian. "Your father's one of his best friends. He tells me constantly how proud he is that you and I are…"

"Then maybe it was to cover something else up," she continued. "Did he have any evidence? Maybe he already suspected Milagro but didn't want you to know. Maybe he thought you'd go after her or something, and he didn't know if you could beat her."

"I could," answered Damian, almost without a thought, but his brow was furrowed in thought. "It did seem like he may have hidden some evidence that he didn't want me to see," he said fairly. "But there was one thing I-"

He broke off suddenly.

Iris looked at him carefully. "Damian? What was it?"

"It was…" he shook his head, looking confused and – hurt? "No," he said. "Nevermind."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Damian. Come on. I'm still a part of this investigation, as much as you are. If you know something, you need to tell me."

"It's nothing!" he said, loudly. "I don't know anything. I heard they suspected you, that's all. But now – now Milagro's ring's been confiscated, which means they should end. The attacks should end."

There was a silence. "You think Milly did all of this?" she asked him. "You think she attacked Sin? You think she attacked you? You think she was the one that carved the message into your arms?"

He looked at her, his eyes wide, fear creeping into his expression. "I don't know," he confessed, and he put his hand to his head, his chest rising and falling with panicked breaths, "I don't know anymore, Irey. I don't what's happening. It's not supposed to-"

Iris was instantly before him, wrapping her arms around him. "Hey," she said softly. "Calm down. It's okay."

He collapsed, returning the embrace and burying his face in her shoulder. His breathing calmed, and one of her hands went to his neck, gently, repetitively running her fingers across his skin where his hair began. He turned his head slightly and kissed her jaw, and then they stood there, holding each other.

The door opened again. Iris looked up immediately, but Damian did not. Lian stood there, watching them wearily. Apologetically, Iris pushed Damian away; he let out a little whine of protest, but silenced when he saw Lian.

"Don't let me interrupt," she said coldly.

Iris looked at her openly, almost longingly, as if she were about to say something, but her words had none of the emotion hidden behind her eyes. "So what do you think?" she asked her, her heavy gaze lidded again with certain steeliness. "What happens now?"

Lian glided around the long table, trailing her fingers across the backs of the seats, never taking her eyes off them. "You've already decided that," she replied coolly. "Haven't you?"

"No," said Iris, but she got the impression Lian hadn't been speaking to her. Lian stood beside her, close to her, almost as close to Damian as she was. "I don't know how to feel about all this," she said carefully, looking at Lian, her eyes gently roving across the other girl's face, soaking in every detail hungrily.

Damian kept his eyes focused on Lian's, pretending he couldn't see Iris's expression. "They're going to tell us to disband."

"This team hasn't fallen apart yet."

"Yes it has."

Damian's words came almost before the words had left Lian's mouth. She narrowed her eyes at him in wary confusion. "You and-"

"Our strongest fighter is down," he said. "Superman's _son_ is out. The youngest Green Lantern in the history of the multiverse – _our_ Green Lantern – has just been charged in the attempted murder of her teammate. Jai can't even hold himself together. And Maxine is too young for any of this."

"She's older than either of you were," Lian shot back.

"That's subjective," said Iris, cutting in. "Technically-"

"Irey. Don't."

Impulse finally jerked her gaze away from Lian, turning to look Damian in the face, a slight crease on her brow indicating her anger. "Don't what?" she asked him, but it was a challenge, not a question.

He turned his head just slightly to look at her. There was a burning moment, as if electricity crackled in the air, and for a moment Lian was almost afraid.

And then she said sharply, "Stop it. You two are not going to do this right now."

They stared at each other for a moment, then Iris said curtly, "Some other time, then."

Without acknowledging her words, Damian turned back to Lian. "So what do you suggest?" he asked her. "That we continue on? As if nothing is wrong?"

"I suggest shutting down the Tower," she replied. "And letting them think we're done."

The silence grew louder.

"Why?" asked Iris. "Why should we keep it up anymore, especially if we're just going to pretend that it's over? Why don't we just shut down the team, then?"

She looked in between the two of them, almost desperately.

"Why did we start this?" she asked, her voice breaking slightly. "How did we think we could do this?"

"We can," said Damian.

Lian bowed her head in consent. "We did, Irey. We were a team. We won't ever forget that."

"Then what are we now?" she asked. "Broken?"

Lian didn't answer right away, just looked at Iris with a curious expression, as if she pitied her. Then Damian said, "A failsafe."

They both looked at him. He met their gazes solidly, glancing from Lian to Iris.

"The League thinks this is over," he said lowly, his eyes glinting in the reflection of the sun, burning far away behind the window and the dark curtain of space. "I think they're wrong."

The look in Lian's eyes hardened. Iris forced herself to look away, glancing at their feet. Three pairs, huddled so closely together. It was strange. But it was a reassurance. A promise.

"We don't get beat so easy," she said, and a smile tugged at her lips, accentuated by the tears in her eyes. She took Damian's hand on one of hers, and Lian's in her other.

"Exactly," whispered Lian, and, transfixed, she couldn't look away from Iris's face – until their eyes briefly met, and she had to look away, overcome.

Damian looked in between the two of them cautiously, but held Iris's hand firmly. "The three of us started this," he said quietly. "It's fitting that we must save it."

Lian nodded. "Yeah," she agreed, holding Iris's hand tightly, maintaining unwavering eye contact with Damian. Iris's smile was almost infectious, and it began to creep onto Lian's face as she said, with no hint of uncertainty, "Titans Together, right?"


	8. Strong enough

Chapter Eight: Strong enough

_"We will tire each other out, making our homes_  
_in one another's arms. We are not strong enough."_  
-Carol Ann Duffy, from "Deportation"

Jai sat on his bed, legs curled up into his chest, staring down at the sheets on the bed. "Yeah," he said finally, as if it were difficult to say the words. "I think…that's a good idea, Dad."

"I thought so," said Wally. "It's totally okay, alright? Don't feel bad. I was the first one to leave the Teen Titans back in my day too. And Buddy even mentioned he's pulling Maxine out, so you're not alone."

"I know," sighed Jai. "I don't even…I mean, I've been thinking about leaving for a while, you know? Maybe I should've done it earlier, I was just-"

He cut himself off, biting his lip.

"You were just what?" asked Wally, concerned.

Jai glanced up at him with dark eyes. Linda's eyes. "Iris really needs me on the team," he admitted. "She told me I couldn't leave before. She's right. I need to be there for her."

Wally hesitated slightly. He knew how deeply his children cared for each other, and how strong their bond was. He didn't want to bring that into question, but at the same time he didn't want his son to be overshadowed by his sister just because she had the powers and he did not.

"Look, Jai," began Wally. "Your sister loves you a lot, but that doesn't mean you have to do everything she says."

"I know that," replied Jai, almost defensively.

"I know you do," agreed Wally, nodding. "But don't let her guilt you into doing things you don't want to do, whatever it is. She's your sister, but she doesn't get to be the boss of you."

Jai met his father's gaze, worry rising in his eyes.

"I'll tell them you decided to leave the team," Wally reassured him. "Don't worry about it. If Iris bothers you, let me know. Just do your homework and don't think about it. Nothing to be ashamed of."

Jai looked away, his jaw clenched, no longer able to look his father in the eye.

Wally looked at his son carefully. "What is it?" he asked. "Jai? Do you need to tell me something?"

Nothing. Then, suddenly, Jai's head started bobbing as he nodded.

"What?" asked Wally, his voice softening. "What is it?"

"I…" Jai paused. "It's about-"

The door to Jai's room swung open suddenly and Iris stood there, still in her Impulse costume, grinning at them. "Hi boys," she said, pulling off her mask. "Am I interrupting something?"

"Could you give us a second, hon?" asked Wally. "Your brother and I were just have a discussion-"

"What about?" she asked, entering the room and sitting on the foot of Jai's bed. "Family meetings are supposed to be held at dinner, Dad."

"Iris, please, can you leave us alone for a minute?"

Iris made a face. "Is this a guy thing?" she asked, turning to her brother. "Are you talking about guy things?"

"Honey, come on, don't be-"

"No," interrupted Jai, glancing at their father. "It's okay, Dad. Thanks. I'm okay now."

Wally looked in between his children. "If you say so," he said, standing up. "Irey, can I talk to you for a second?"

Iris's face fell. "But _Daddy_-"

"Just a second. Come here."

She followed him out of Jai's room, then he turned to look at her, folding his arms across his chest, watching her wide eyes, the confused little smile on her face.

"Are you bullying your brother?" he asked.

The question surprised her. "What? No. I'd never. Did he say that?"

"No. But I don't want you pressuring him about anything." He paused, then added, "And I don't want you two keeping any secrets. I know the past few weeks have been stressful for everybody, but now more than ever, you _have _to communicate with your mom and me. We want you to be safe."

"I _am_ safe," she stressed. "And so is Jai. I'll keep him safe. I promise."

"Right. Well. That's not gonna be entirely your responsibility anymore, okay?"

She stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Jai's not gonna be a part of the Titans anymore, Irey. He's gonna stay at home and go to school. No more visits to the Tower."

"What?" asked Iris sharply. "You're kidding."

"From what I understand there's not really much of a team left. You, Lian and Damian, right?"

She didn't answer for a moment, then nodded.

"All right," said Wally. "That's fine. I know you three need each other. Just don't drag your brother into this."

"He wants to be a part of this."

"I don't think he does."

"I don't think you know."

Wally blinked, taken aback. "Iris. Please. You know he idolizes you."

"He does not."

"He does too. And that may mean that he's sometimes not one hundred percent honest with you. Maybe he tells you what you want to hear."

"No," said Iris, shaking her head. "You don't understand. No offense, but you don't have a twin, Dad."

Wally didn't reply to this right away. Then, "Just be nice to him. He's not as strong as you are."

"Okay, Dad," said Iris, rolling her eyes, but with a smile on her face, as if she were joking. "Whatever you say." Then she turned and headed back into Jai's room, flashing him one last grin before she closed the door behind her.

Jai looked at her glumly. She'd only been speaking to their father for a few seconds; when alone, they instinctually spoke so much more quickly than they did around those non-speedsters. Sometimes it bothered Jai, but he couldn't begrudge them that; he could still remember what it felt like, to live in a world going half his speed.

Iris hovered by the door a moment, until she heard her father's footsteps walk away, down the stairs. Then let out a slow breath, and, in a flash, was suddenly wearing regular clothes, her costume discarded in her own room.

"I wish you wouldn't do that in my room," said Jai.

"Why not?" she asked. "Not like you can see it."

He said nothing, the taste in his mouth going sour.

She paused, then said, "Sorry. I'm…off my game."

"Yeah," said Jai. "Me too."

She sat down on his bed again. "_Milagro_, though," she said. "Can you even believe it?"

They were silent.

Jai murmured, "I feel so stupid."

Iris looked up. "For what?"

He shook his head. "I just…lost it," he said. "I completely lost it in front of everybody." He sighed, putting a hand to his forehead, covering his eyes. "So stupid."

"It's okay," said Iris. "Nobody's blaming you. It was really intense. I thought I was gonna start crying too."

"No you didn't," he replied. "You were in control the whole time, Irey. I don't even think you were vibrating." He tried to laugh, but it turned into a strange, strangled sound. "Guess all that hard work finally paid off."

"Nah," she said gently. "That's how you know I'm freaking out, Jai. When I'm completely still."

There was silence.

And then Iris murmured, "Dad says you're leaving the team."

"You should too," he said, without hesitation. "You're a target."

"They caught Milagro," Iris replied, her voice rising. "It's over."

"It doesn't matter," said Jai. "I'm off anyhow."

"Why?" demanded Iris. "Everyone loves you."

"_Everyone_. You mean Lian and Damian. You're the only ones left."

"And you," said Iris firmly. "You're a part of this team, Jai. I need you."

"You need someone to work the machines," said Jai lowly. "Get your boyfriend to do it. Or your girlfriend."

"Lian isn't-" Iris caught herself, a flush rising to her cheeks. "Stop it. You're not leaving me now."

"It's just a dumb team."

"_No_. Jai, it's more than that."

She stared at him, her bright eyes inches away from his dark ones. It took her a moment to realize she was no longer at the foot of his bed, but now directly in front of him, holding his wrist tightly.

Uncomfortably, she let him go and retreated slightly. "Sorry," she mumbled.

His gaze was fixed on her, an unfamiliar expression in his face. "You don't need me, Iris," he said quietly. "Let's leave it at that."

There was a long silence. And then, her voice burning, full of fury, she asked, "So what? So that's it? I walk out of your room and let you become the kid next door, while I go back to being Impulse? Is that what you want?"

"Kind of," said Jai, nodding. "Yeah."

"Well, that's impossible," she said quickly. "You're the Flash's son. You're a _part_ of this, whether you want to be or not."

Jai looked up at her, frustration etched in the lines of his face, a steely determination set in his eyes. "Iris," he said loudly, powerfully. "Listen to me for five seconds." She said nothing, only watched him suspiciously. "I've spent most of my life so far being your sidekick. Your team mascot."

"That's not-"

"I can't fight. I don't have a power."

She looked at him uneasily. "Jai, I _had_ to-"

"I know you did," he said, soothing her. "I've never been jealous of your gift, Irey. It's you and not me for a reason. You saved my life when you took those powers, and it's a big responsibility. I don't know if it's something I'd even want."

He paused. She didn't speak.

He continued, "But I'm not going to be Impulse's little brother. I'm gonna be more than that."

"You _are_ more than that," she said suddenly. "I never meant to make you feel-"

"I just want to play my videogames," he said, speaking over her. "And I just want to go to school, and I want to do my homework, and I want to go over to my friends' houses _without_ risking assault by a supervillain. I love you and Dad, but I just, I don't know." He paused, and then said, "I just don't love either of you like Mom does. I'm not going to be a part of this for the rest of my life. I don't think I could."

She didn't say anything to this.

And then she stood up. "You're wrong, you know," she said quietly, heading to the door. "I'm sorry, but you're wrong. You'll always be a part of this, Jai. And I will always need you."

That night in Gotham, underneath Wayne Manor, Dick Grayson was sitting in Batman's seat before the computers, rewinding and replaying a tape over and over again.

The sound of a boy crying, and Roy's tinny voice, "-_the whole three seconds that you'll be gone. Go ahead_." Dinah adding, "_Give them both our love_."

Dick stared at the screen silently for one minute.

Rewound. "_Give them both our love_."

Thirty seconds.

Rewound. "_-both our love._"

The same thirty seconds.

Rewound. Slowed the tape. "_-ooouuuuuur loooooooooove._"

The thirty seconds lasted longer, but he narrowed his eyes. Rewound again. Frame by frame, he watched the tape from the Watchtower, and then – oh, God – his eyes widened in disbelief, and then-

A shrill beeping filled the cave, and Dick swore, his heart pounding. He took a deep, calming breath, and then hit a button to answer the call. A familiar face filled the screen.

"Finally, Bruce, I-"

Barbara cut off, blinking down at Dick. "Hi Babs," he said, managing a weak smile.

"Where's Bruce?" she asked.

"Just went out on patrol."

"With Damian?"

Dick nodded.

Barbara glanced away from the screen, muttering, "Damn."

She said nothing more, so Dick ventured, "Why? Did you want to speak to him?"

"To the kid? No. Of course not. It's just that Bruce _still_ won't talk to me about the tape."

"What tape?"

She glanced into the camera at her end, and he felt like she was staring straight into his eyes. "You know. The one about Damian."

"What one about Damian?" he asked suspiciously.

"From the-" she broke off, narrowing her eyes. "Bruce didn't show you?"

"Show me what?"

She shook her head, rubbing her forehead. "Somehow, this isn't surprising. Of course he didn't show you."

"Show me _what?_" demanded Dick, more urgent now. "Look, Babs, right now isn't really a great time. If we could just skip the banter-"

"The security tape," she said coldly. "From the night Damian was attacked."

Dick fell silent. He looked at her carefully. "I was told there were no tapes," he said.

"Bruce _would_ say that, wouldn't he? I think he likes knowing that _someone_ doesn't think Damian's a complete murdering psychopath."

"What are you talking about?"

"Here," she said roughly. "Just watch it for yourself."

Where her face had been, there appeared a very grainy, pixelated video. Bright yellow and red, Damian's costume. Farther away, something – a body, a man maybe – was running. Damian took out a grapple, aimed it calmly, and watched as the man fell.

Unflinching, Damian wrenched his arms sharply, and force of the wire tugged the man over the edge of the building, and Damian let go of the line.

Not a moment later, Damian collapsed, convulsing on the ground, attacked by some seemingly unknown force. Seconds later, everything was still, Damian lying on the rooftop, his yellow cape stained red with blood.

Barbara removed the video and her own face appeared again, looking at him gravely. Dick could hardly move. "What?" he asked, confused. "What the hell was that?"

"The only security footage I could find of the incident," answered Barbara, a hard edge in her voice. "And proof that your baby Robin Damian isn't as reformed as we thought."

"This is impossible," said Dick, still struggling to fathom what he had just seen. "He told me… there's no way he would've…not after…"

"I know," said Barbara gravely. "To be honest…I almost didn't believe it myself, at first."

"But what happened to him?" asked Dick. "He just went down. Something must've attacked him, his injuries were incredible."

"I can't answer that one," replied Barbara. "On the tape, he just lies there until Stephanie show up and bring him in." She paused, then asked, "But is that what we should be focusing on right now? I realize some stuff has just gone down with the Teen Titans, but Damian _killed_ Zsasz. That has to mean something."

"Maybe the attacker was invisible…" murmured Dick thoughtfully. "No. That wouldn't make sense. He went straight down, way too fast for-"

He broke off suddenly, everything sliding into place.

"Babs," he said, "I need you to send this video to me."

"Sure. Just don't tell Bruce."

"I won't," said Dick, almost quietly, his heart sinking slowly into his stomach. "I don't think I have to."

Barbara raised an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

"It means," answered Dick, "he already knows, Babs. He's known the whole time."

He ended the call. For a moment, he didn't move. And then he reached out to the controls, to make another call.

After a few seconds of connecting, loud, rushing sounds filled the Cave. "Hey Wally," Dick called.

"Nightwing, man!" came Wally's voice. He was in the field. "This a work call?"

"Kind of," replied Dick. "I need to talk to you about something."

"Yeah, it's gonna have to wait. A little busy at the moment."

"It's important."

"I'm – yeah, League business right now, can't really take off – I'll call you back, okay?"

"I'll wait." But the line was already dead. Dick stared at the screen for a little, then slumped back into the chair, letting out a frustrated sigh.

In the city, Damian was crouching beside a stone gargoyle, high enough that he could see the layout of the streets for a few blocks. He squinted through the darkness, occasionally switching his mask's vision.

"Fauna's dad took her out," came Iris's voice in his ear. "And my brother says he's not interested anymore, but I don't believe him."

"No offense," Lian's voice; she was in on patrol in Star City, nocking an arrow in her bow, "but he wasn't really involved in our missions anyway. We'll miss him, of course…"

"But we don't need him," finished Damian.

"I need him," said Iris indignantly. "You two just don't get it."

"We don't have time to argue right now," murmured Damian. "We need to move. Have either of you found anything out about Bagheera?"

"No," answered Iris. "He's not one of my dad's rogues. That's all I know."

"Nothing on the name," said Lian, sending an arrow flying, then, the criminal secured, remotely sending the location to the police. "But I did find something."

"Go on."

"My dad is working on our case. Like the rest of the League, I bet. But anyway, he thinks he has a lead."

Damian's pulse quickened slightly. Iris said nothing. "And?" he asked.

"Deathstroke," Lian continued. "My dad thinks he's behind this."

"Deathstroke?" echoed Iris, surprised. "He's been off the grid for years. I thought he was dead."

"Slade won't die," said Damian lowly. "He's too good for that."

Lian closed one eye, aiming another arrow. "On a first name basis with a supervillain, Robin? Really?"

"He was a teacher of mine before I came to my father," Damian continued. "He and my mother once tried to use me to kill Batman." He added, "Nightwing, I mean. He was Batman then."

"Did your dad have any intel on Deathstroke, Arsenal?" asked Iris.

"Not much," replied Lian. "Just some shipping records that would suggest his involvement. But my dad was one of the last to fight Deathstroke before his disappearance, when he was undercover."

"That's right," said Damian, his eyes narrowed slightly in thought. "I remember that. Slade and his cronies caused that fiasco at Arkham. It was after you were presumed dead."

"Right," said Lian. "Batman – um, Nightwing – and my dad faked my death in order to infiltrate Deathstroke's team. He was going to take them down from the inside, and he needed me out of the equation for my own safety. You know how quick Deathstroke is to make it personal."

"That's how Jericho came back," said Iris, recalling the incident. "Deathstroke's whole mission was actually to construct the machine that saved his son."

"Which Batman and my dad had suspected from the start. It was as much a rescue mission as anything else. Joseph Wilson deserved a fresh start, but not under the thumb of his father."

"Should we contact Joey, then?" asked Iris. "Would he know anything?"

"I doubt it," Damian said. "Supervillains don't tend to be particularly communicative with their children."

Even though she knew they couldn't see her, Lian nodded all the same, a bitter smile on her lips. "Robin's got a point there, Impulse."

"Then where do we start?" pressed Iris. "Give me someplace general. I'll start looking. I'll look everywhere."

"No, Impulse," said Damian. "There are better ways."

"Like what?" asked Iris, and there was a hint of aggression in her voice. "What would you suggest, Robin? Sit around on our hands until our GL magically remembers how Slade Wilson got to her?"

"That's a good question," interrupted Lian, before Damian could speak. "We know Deathstroke has a drug that lets him influence and control people. But how did he get to a _Green Lantern?_ And they tested her blood after they took her ring. She was clean, but somehow had no recollection at all of the attack."

"Slade's drug doesn't work that quickly," Damian said darkly. "I think you're leaping to conclusions, Arsenal."

"I'm not saying anything, Robin," replied Lian, a steely edge in her voice. "Just asking questions."

"Impulse, would you be – excuse me-"

The distinct sounds of a fist colliding with flesh, and some thug's rough grunts as Damian knocked him unconscious. Damian bound the man's hands and tossed a bag full of money back to the owner of the shop that had just been robbed. "Call the police," Damian said, sounding almost bored, then as he returned to his perch beside the gargoyle, he added, "Armed robbery, Arsenal. That's four points."

"We decided armed robbery was three points, Robin," said Lian, sounding almost exasperated. "Attempted homicide ups it to four."

"I think you're wrong," replied Damian. "Attempted homicide is a _separate_ set of-"

"Robin."

Damian fell silent at Iris's voice. Then he continued, "Anyway. Impulse, would you be able to speak with our Green Lantern?"

"Probably, yes," replied Iris. "I heard she's just with her parents. But if the GLC or the Justice League are watching her, I may run into some trouble."

"They can't object to you going to visit a former teammate, can they?" asked Lian, tugging a dart gun out of her belt and shooting it at someone running down a back alley, obviously stolen goods in their arms. She held the weapon in her hands, considering claiming her points.

"After what she did to Superboy, I'm surprised they're not keeping her in the Watchtower," said Damian.

"They're just being absurd," said Lian, pushing the criminal with a soft kick, rolling him onto his back and alerting the police again. "They've forgiven more than that before."

Damian didn't reply, fully aware that Lian's comment was directed at him.

"I think part of it has to do with her being a Green Lantern," said Iris fairly. "It's a lot of power, and you know everybody was saying she was too young. This just…proved them right."

All three of them were silent.

Then Lian said, "It's not fair."

Neither Iris nor Damian replied. They didn't need to.

"Impulse, if you can speak to her, then we need a detailed record of everything she can remember before she attacked Superboy."

"Do you really think that'll tell us anything?"

"We need everything we can get." Damian paused, then said, "Now that we have a suspect, I can do more research with my father's files. Arsenal, I expect you to do the same."

"I'll look at my father's case records for his last mission with Deathstroke," she said. "And I'll talk to Jericho if I get the chance."

"Wait," said Iris suddenly. "This still doesn't make sense."

"We're just going to have to go with it, Impulse," said Damian. "We don't have any other-"

"No," said Iris, cutting him off. "Our _one_ clue. Bagheera. The name doesn't fit into any of this."

Damian ran his fingers across his sleeves, as if he could feel the scars beneath the Kevlar. "Perhaps it's Deathstroke's means of throwing us off his scent."

"That's not his style," answered Lian. She paused, then continued, "You know, I still don't understand how we even got that name in the first place. Somebody cut you, right, Robin?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "The wounds just appeared. One moment I was just sitting there and the next I was bleeding."

"Did you check your skin? For toxins, or any kind of microtechnology?"

Damian didn't reply immediately. "I couldn't," he said. "Using any tech in the cave would've alerted my father. I didn't want him involved in this."

"So crucial evidence was basically washed down the drain because you didn't want to tell daddy."

"If I'd known it would go this far, I would've found a way."

"Or you had no reason to."

They fell silent. Damian's body grew rigid, his heart tightening slightly.

"What does that mean, Impulse?" he asked quietly.

She didn't reply immediately. Then, "Nothing. It's just that _if_ Deathstroke got to our Lantern, he could potentially get to any of us. I want you to keep that in mind."

"I'm prepared."

"But were you always?"

Lian was taken aback at the dangerous sincerity in Iris's voice. She said nothing. Slowly, Damian replied, "Slade had control over me once. I wouldn't let that happen again."

Lian took the silence as her cue. "Honestly, I'm inclined to believe him, Impulse," she said. "There are a hundred different ways of causing localized, remote injuries like that. Robin's been right from the beginning. It was a message."

"To me," said Damian. "To me directly."

He stopped abruptly, something suddenly connecting in his mind.

"I don't know about that," said Lian reasonably. "I'd say the message was meant for all of us. Someone's teasing us." She paused, then said, "Someone can touch us. On the job, in our homes, when we least expect it. We will always be targets. We will never be safe. That's what they're trying to tell us."

"You think the attacks will continue?" asked Iris seriously.

"I think so," replied Lian. "Robin, you may be clear, but I wouldn't bank on it." Another communicator on Lian's belt went off, flashing red. "Okay, I have to go, but I'll work on this. Be careful. If anything weird happens, don't keep it to yourself. Contact the rest of us immediately." She paused, then ventured, "Goodnight, then, Impulse."

Iris didn't hesitate. "Goodnight, Arsenal. Sweet dreams. Love you."

For a moment, Lian couldn't say anything, too surprised by Iris's boldness to reply. Damian could still hear everything they said. "Right," she said uncertainly. "Um, love you too. 'Night, then."

A gentle _click_ and Lian was gone.

There was a long, tense silence.

"I love you?" asked Damian. It wasn't a statement, so she didn't reciprocate.

"I say that to her all the time," said Iris, rolling her eyes slightly, something in her chest burning. "It's how I say goodnight."

Damian was quietly for a moment. Then, "That's not how you say goodnight to me."

"You're different."

"Don't lie to me," said Damian softly. "That was deliberate." He paused. "And it was cruel."

"It's _different_. Believe me."

"How can I?"

"Don't do this to me."

"Do what to you?" he shot back. "Do you resent the fact that it makes me uncomfortable when you flirt with her?"

"We weren't _flirting_-"

"All you ever _do_ is flirt with her. It's like – it's like you're just waiting for her – I don't want to be your second choice."

Nothing.

He asked bluntly, "If she were honest with you, would you leave me?"

Iris had stopped running, but she felt a vibration in her very core, nearly beyond her control. "She's not _trying_ to break up this relationship. It's not her fault."

"I'm not blaming her."

"Then there's nothing-"

"Iris, _please_."

There was desperation in his voice. Her resistance evaporated; the vibration spread through her limbs and into her heart, and she was on fire and only half in this plane, half in another, and then-

Damian murmured, "I love you."

His words brought her back, solidifying her shaking molecules. Her feet were planted steadily on the ground, and she swept a hand across her eyes, unable to find the words inside of her.

She said, "No real names in the field, Damian," and the line went dead.

Damian was left there alone in the Gotham night, breaking into pieces.

The next day, Dick left the Mansion, heading for the middle of the city. Wayne Tower. He descended into the Batbunker, for a moment savoring the dark and stillness, until the motion sensors kicked in and the bunker flooded with artificial light. It had been a long time since Dick had worked with Damian out of the bunker, but the memories it recalled were fond. He would've smiled, but he couldn't find the strength to do so.

He briefly worked on the computers, finding what he needed, and then he paused, glancing at the time.

A blur, and then red lights started to blink, the alarm tripping. Dick almost rolled his eyes and typed in a code to shut it down, then turned to look at Wally.

"You could've just knocked," he said.

"I thought you were in a hurry," replied Wally, shrugging. "So shoot. What did you want to talk about?"

Dick didn't begin right away. He looked back at the screen, then to Wally again. He asked, "Have you talked to Iris lately?"

"Yeah," replied Wally, slightly confused. "She's my daughter. I talk to her every day."

He paused, then said, "I'm really…happy about her and Damian, by the way. She is a light in his life, one that he really needs."

Wally couldn't resist a grin. "That's my girl," he said. "She's a lover, not a fighter."

Dick nodded. "Do you know how fast she is?"

"Not exactly," replied Wally. "She fluctuates. I'm thinking it'll get more stable with time."

"She faster than you?"

"I don't think so. She buckles somewhere above the speed of sound. So, no."

"Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure."

Dick looked at him uneasily. He hit a button and the screen of the computer was filled with a familiar sight: the meeting room of the Watchtower from a few days earlier, filled with the Teen Titans. "Watch this," said Dick quietly.

He played the video. It began with Black Canary's voice. "_-our love_."

Wally stared at the screen, at Maxine and her father, Milagro and her brother, Lian standing awkwardly beside Damian, and then Iris, sitting there alone.

It only took a few seconds, and then his expression changed. Dick paused the video, watching him silently.

He asked, "Did you see it?"

Wally ignored his question. "Play it again."

Dick did so.

"What is this?" asked Wally, squinting at the screen. "How'd you even get this?"

"Are you kidding? Batman has all the Watchtower security footage." He paused, then asked, "So? What do you see?"

Wally didn't reply right away, then, without looking away from the screen: "Iris moves."

"Yes," said Dick. "Iris moves. Here."

Dick pressed a few more buttons, pulling the video to a certain point and then clicking through, frame-by-frame.

"This security system is designed with speedsters in mind," he explained. "Bruce made sure it could capture movement well over your top speed."

"Bruce doesn't know my top speed."

"Believe me, Wally. He does."

Wally didn't argue, but stared straight at the screen. One frame, Iris was sitting there at the table alone. The next, she wasn't quite there, but she wasn't quite standing beside Milagro, touching her neck, either. Her path across the room a blur of transparent red from her costume. She had clearly been caught in mid-run.

Dick clicked to the next frame. Iris sat at the table again, in the same exact position as before. He looked at Wally.

"One frame," he said. "One."

Wally shook his head. "The cameras aren't as good as you thought they were."

"Or maybe she's better than you think she is."

"No," said Wally. "She _can't_ go as fast as it seems she is."

"Maybe-"

"I'm not talking about her abilities," he said. "In the Watchtower. In the space of what, ten feet? Logistically, it's impossible. Physics don't work that way."

"You bend the laws of physics all the time," replied Dick. "The whole concept of the Speed Force relies on ignoring every law of physics there is."

"She can't access the Speed Force like that," said Wally emphatically. "Nobody can."

"Maybe her connection is something special," said Dick. "Her whole life, she's been the ultimate conduit for the Speed Force. Isn't it possible-"

"There's something wrong with your camera," Wally replied with finality. "What would she even be doing? Touching Milagro? That doesn't make sense."

Dick turned back to the screen. "Yeah," he said. "I don't know."

Wally asked, "Is that all?"

"No," said Dick. "I have something else I want you to see."

"About Iris?"

Dick glanced at him. "I don't know," he said. "You tell me." He pulled another video on the screen. This one was much more grainy, the quality not half as good as the last one. Dick had carefully cut this one so it began just a moment after the other man vanished off the side of a building.

Wally watched carefully, concern knitting his brow as he watched. "Jesus," he murmured. "Is he having a seizure?"

"No," replied Dick. "Something's attacking him. We just can't tell what it is. I thought if it was a speedster, you'd be able to tell us."

"I can't really see anything," said Wally. "The video quality's not any good. Too slow."

There was a silence. And then Dick asked, "But a speedster could've done this, right? The way he's getting knocked around, like somebody's running circles around him."

"I _guess_," said Wally, giving a half-hearted shrug. "But they would have to be going pretty fast. Anything artificial, like a speed suit or something, probably would've been caught by the camera."

Dick looked at him.

Wally returned his gaze.

Gently, Dick said, "Wally, if Milagro was somehow compelled to attack Chris, then we need to entertain the possibility that other members of the team could also have been vulnerable to-"

"What?" asked Wally, looking at Dick, his eyes wide in confusion and something like alarm. "What?"

"I'm just saying," said Dick, "maybe Milagro isn't the only one of them who was compromised."

"Excuse me?" asked Wally, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "Are you _accusing_ my daughter?"

"I'm not accusing anyone," replied Dick cautiously. "I'm just saying that we may be a little blind to-"

"No," said Wally. "Iris was at the Tower that night, with Jai and Lian and Sin. The Tower is designed to track anybody who enters or leaves. There was no record of her leaving, she couldn't have done it."

"Unless she was faster than the sensors."

"Except she isn't!" said Wally loudly. "I _know_ how fast she is, and it's no faster than I am. And let me just say, this is _real_ big talk from the guy whose kid is a trained _assassin_."

"That's not fair," protested Dick.

"Why not?" asked Wally. "You're blaming my kid for this. You should've seen her face when I told her about him that morning. She was devastated. She couldn't have done it. And you saw how aggressive Damian was in the Watchtower, you saw the way he went straight for Milagro."

"He only started accusing her because she was accusing him," said Dick defensively.

"Or maybe he knew," replied Wally. "Maybe _this_," he gestured at the screen, "is his fault. Maybe – maybe he did this by himself, and made it look this way. Just so you'd suspect my daughter."

A look of fear passed over his face.

Dick began, "How would he even-"

Wally asked, almost faintly, "Is he dangerous?"

Dick fell silent. Wally finally looked back at him.

"You asked me that when Iris first started seeing him," said Dick quietly. "My answer hasn't changed."

Wally didn't take his eyes off Dick's.

"And I'm not talking about any of them consciously betraying the team," he continued. "This isn't Terra all over again. But if somebody's controlling any one of them, then they're all at risk. They're all in danger."

Wally met Dick's gaze warily. "There aren't a whole lot of mind control techniques that would work on Irey," he said. "Any kind of drug would go straight through her system. Somebody would have to be inside her head."

"So it's possible."

"No," said Wally, shaking his head. "But instead of punching you in the face for even suggesting it, I'm trying to humor you."

Dick bit back a retort. "Wally-"

"Look, Dick," he interrupted, "I'll talk to Iris. But I can't believe you'd suggest this. I know my daughter, and I know how much she, for some insane reason, _loves_ your little brother. Your brother, the assassin."

Dick looked away, clenching his jaw to keep him from saying something he'd regret.

Wally turned away, as if to leave. "Maybe it's best if my family just stays away from yours," he said. "At least until this is over."

"Don't do that to her and Damian," said Dick.

"But aren't you worried that she'll try to kill him again?"

"I'm sorry, okay? Don't take this out on them."

"I just don't know if I want my daughter around the sort of people who think children are _capable_ of this-"

"Milagro was!" said Dick, and his voice had risen, and it rang through the bunker. He stood up and took Wally's arm, but the other man brushed him off. "Listen to me! Do you know how long it took Iris to get to the hospital room in _Gotham_ from Keystone City the day Damian was attacked? Less than a minute. Almost instantaneously. How fast can you run that?"

Wally just watched him.

"_And_," Dick continued, "when she was in the hospital room with him, she _did _something. She healed him, or something, because we took him home that same day. His injuries should've put him into a coma. She _did something_."

"What?" asked Wally. "What could she have possibly done? She doesn't have any healing powers-"

"Wally," interrupted Dick loudly, staring into his eyes. "What if she can redirect the Speed Force? She took it from Jai, right? What if she can connect other people to it?"

"That's impossible," said Wally. "Jai was a completely different situation-"

"You saw that video from the Watchtower," insisted Dick. "Stop lying to yourself. You _know_ how fast she went, and you know that she shouldn't be able to do that. And, by the way, I checked the security records at the Tower the night of Chris's attack. It said Iris was there the _whole night_. That's _proof_ that she's faster than the security."

"Proof?" echoed Wally incredulously. "Of _what?_ She _was_ there the whole night!"

Dick pulled away slightly, taken aback. "What?" he asked. "No, she wasn't."

"Yes, she was!" continued Wally shrilly. "I dropped her off, I _watched_ her walk in, and Roy went and got her and Lian in the morning. She was there the _whole night_."

The dark-haired man stared at him. "She didn't tell you," he said, and it wasn't a question.

"Tell me what?" demanded Wally. "What the hell do you know about my daughter?"  
Dick didn't say anything, internally struggling with his conscience. Wally took hold of Dick's shoulders, his fingers digging into his flesh.

"Dick! What are you _talking_ about?"

"Damian and Iris had a date," said Dick, his voice quieter now, more in control. "On the night of Chris's attack, they were here."

"Here?"

"In the penthouse," Dick explained. "I checked the security footage. They were here almost the whole night."

"The whole night?" echoed Wally, as if he didn't understand. "That's…that's not true…"

Dick pried Wally's fingers off of him and went to the computer, typing something in. Another video appeared. It was dark, but the camera quality was nearly as good as those in the Watchtower. The date and time appeared in the corner.

The camera faced an elevator, and Damian appeared, wearing nothing but a pair of pajama pants, slung low and uneven across his hips. When Iris appeared, she was fully dressed. He spoke to her wordlessly in earnest; they both glanced at the cameras, then a moment later, she drew him in for a long, deep kiss, and then boarded the elevator that Damian had just opened.

Damian stood there for a moment, in full view of the camera. The camera was so fine that, despite the darkness, there were clear, visible marks on Damian's chest, tiny red half-moon semicircles. Fingernail marks.

Wally looked away.

"She was here," said Damian. "I just assumed she talked to you. Or Linda."

"You knew about this?" asked Wally.

Dick nodded. "Damian told me."

"Damian _told_-?" Wally shook his head, his whole body trembling slightly. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Like I said, I just thought she'd already talked to you. It's not my business to-"

"You left them _alone_ together?" he asked, fury rising in his voice. "On the _night_ of the most serious attack?"

"They didn't know," said Dick. "Nobody knew."

"They're kids!" Wally shouted at him. "They're _children!_"

"They can make their own decisions," replied Dick stubbornly. "We did when we were their age!"

"This is different!"

"How?"

"Because they're _our _kids!"

Wally's voice rang out through the bunker, and Dick fell silent.

"This is my daughter," he said, more weakly now. "There's nothing on Earth I love more than my children, Dick. How could you…" He looked away, shaking his head. "You don't understand," he said. "You don't have kids."

Dick took the blow, swallowing the sting. "Wally-"

"Just stop," said Wally. "Stop."

He let go of Dick and took a few steps back.

"I don't know what you're trying to do here, Dick," he said. "Because you're sure as hell not helping them. And I don't think I want you around my daughter, if you're so sure that she's guilty but so convinced that Damian is innocent." He glanced at Dick. "I trusted him with her because she believes in him," he said quietly. "But that kid has it in him. You know he does. He always has."

"Wally," said Dick, reaching out to him. "Come on, Wally-"

But he was gone, and Dick was alone, a sinking, creeping sensation crawling up his spine.


	9. Tell all the truth

Chapter Nine: Tell all the truth

_"Tell all the truth but tell it slant,  
Success in circuit lies  
Too bright for our infirm delight  
The truth's superb surprise_

_ As lightning to the children eased  
With explanation kind  
The truth must dazzle gradually  
Or every man be blind"  
_-Emily Dickinson

Damian's room was dark. It was early enough in the morning that the sun hadn't yet began to peek over the horizon. The Batman was still out on patrol, but the night was still and Damian had requested to return home early. His father hadn't objected, and so he lay in his bed in the dark, a thousand thoughts running through his head.

Before he had retired, he'd spent time in the Batcave, going through files in the computer. He had found nothing on Deathstroke. There was a case file for Red Arrow's last undercover mission with Deathstroke's team, but Damian hadn't bothered to read it; Lian would report on that. And there was a more pressing matter at hand.

Slowly, almost dreading what he would find, he found the file titled his mother's name. He opened it. The available information was basic, but specific information was locked without a passcode. He looked at the keys, then up at her picture on the screen, then slowly tapped in seven letters.

_B. E. L. O. V. E. D._

The screen came to life with information. Last documented activity was in Switzerland, less than a week ago. She hadn't been in the States for over a year, but there were shipping records. Toxin components. Shipped to a known alias of Slade Wilson? It didn't make sense. If Slade wanted his involvement known, he wouldn't have done it through such a transparent clue. Something wasn't right, and it didn't sit well in Damian's stomach, but he eventually abandoned the computer, returning to his quiet bed to think in silence.

He didn't close his eyes; he stared up into the darkness, his mind on fire, searching for the connection. Nothing made sense.

In the darkness, his other senses were heightened. A strange, sweetly sickening odor lingered. A chill permeated through the walls, coming from the drafty cave below. The old manor creaked and groaned in the night, as if shuddering in protest against its gross, heavy burden.

A creak much closer, the skidding sounds of feet on hardwood, and unmistakable breathing coming from within the room.

Damian's hands instinctively reached for the weapons in the small table beside his bed, sitting straight up, locking his muscles in preparation for attack. He squinted, his eyes already adjusted to the dark. A shadowy figure hung in the corner of his room.

He said lowly, "If you've come to kill me, you'll have to be much better than that."

The figure stepped forward slightly, into the moonlight streaming in through his high window. The shine of the stars danced through her bright red hair, but didn't reach her eyes.

"Very intimidating, Damian," Iris said, almost amused. "But don't worry. No plans to kill you tonight."

Damian held his weapon for a moment longer, then lowered the long dagger. "I thought you'd come soon," he said. "But you could've been earlier."

"Sorry," she said. "I know I left it on bad terms last time we talked. But I was just…still stressed from Milagro, I suppose."

"I don't begrudge you that," he replied, and it was cautious, as if he were explaining himself. "This has been difficult for all of us."

She didn't say anything for a moment, then walked – _walked_, not sped – to his bed, and sat down beside him, laying a hand on his thigh. Her touch sent a thrill down Damian's spine, but he got the impression it was more for her benefit than his.

"I would've come sooner," she said, quieter now. "But I wanted to be alone, and I didn't want to catch you on patrol." She gave him a little smile. "I've found that Damian is a lot easier to talk to than Robin is."

Damian didn't change his expression. "I am Robin," he said, as quietly as she had spoken, but there was a desperate edge in his voice. "I was born for it, Irey. I was bred to be a soldier." Painfully, he added, "I can't run from that."

"No," she said, reaching out to trail her fingers down his jaw. "You're more than that." She leaned in and kissed him gently, holding his face in her hand. "You're so kind," she whispered. "And gentle. But you don't want anybody to know."

"In this life," Damian murmured, "kindness is a shortcoming."

She let go of him, pulling away. "Is that how you'd explain how you acted on the Watchtower?" she asked, and her soft words were laced with poison. "Because you've been mean before, Damian, but the way you disregarded me – threw away _everybody_…" She shook her head, her eyes flickering down his face, his exposed neck.

His expression turned hard. "I did what I had to do," he said. "At least I was honest. I thought you'd be proud."

"You completely ignored me," she said. "I tried to help you."

"It wasn't necessary."

"Right," she breathed, her eyes narrowed. "That's me. Not necessary."

Silence.

He said, "I can take care of myself."

"You don't have to do this to yourself," she said. "You never let anyone in. You never rely on anyone but yourself. You can trust us. You can trust _me_."

"I do," he replied.

"You don't," she said, and her voice cut through the darkness. She pulled her hand away from Damian. "You don't," she repeated, softer now. "And that's going to tear us apart, Damian."

"Are you blaming this on me?" he asked. "How _can_ I trust you, when you're always one confession away from leaving me?"

"I want to be with you," she stressed, leaning in, suddenly sounding tired. "Isn't that enough? I want to be here with you."

"But you're not," he interrupted, but he wouldn't look at her. "You never are. Not one hundred percent."

She stared at him. "I can't help that," she said. "That's how I am. I'm never anywhere a hundred percent, I'm too fast for that." She paused. "You love me for that."

Damian looked away, as if ashamed. They both knew that wasn't what he had meant. "You should go, Iris."

She didn't say anything. And then, "I'm not giving up on you." He couldn't meet her gaze. "Anyway, I just…I wanted to ask if you would come to my house tomorrow. We moved everything out of the Tower and most of it was my family's, but there was some – I mean, you didn't empty your room – and there's some stuff that…"

"I don't want any of it," replied Damian shortly. "I left nothing in that Tower."

"Maxine's going to be there," continued Iris. "And Jai, of course." She paused, then added, "And Lian."

Damian was silent for a moment, and then he said, "I can't be there. Enjoy yourselves."

"Damian-"

"Will you leave now, Iris?" he asked, and his voice was hard.

Iris blinked, then pulled away completely. "Of course," she replied, her voice losing its softness. "I…still need to talk to Milagro. I'll get you that information as soon as I can."

And then she was gone.

Damian sat there in his bed, unmoving for a long time.

And then he replaced his weapon in the drawer beside his bed and laid down again, his whole body shaking.

The grayness of the approaching dawn cast an odd sort of filter across Gotham City as Batman crouched atop a tall stone building, scanning the city. A gentle whooshing sound, and then he sensed a familiar presence beside him, watching his streets with eyes better than any lens on the cowl.

"I'm going to take him, then."

Without glancing at the Kryptonian beside him, Bruce asked, "Have you considered waiting?"

"Of course I have. You know that I have. But it's been days now and I still can't bring him home. He's in pain."

"He's weak. He'll recover in time."

Superman was silent for a moment. Then he said, "This is my son, Bruce."

Batman didn't reply.

"I'm going. I won't take long."

Neither of them said anything. A strange sort of electric tension glimmered through the air between them. Then Superman was gone, leaving Bruce alone in the darkness, watching over his city.

Hours later, in Keystone City, Wally West stood in his kitchen, leaning against the counter. "I think it's good," said Linda, sitting at the table with Roy. "Just because we're shutting the team down doesn't mean we have to shut their friendships down. That would just be cruel.

"I agree," said Roy, nodding. "Besides, since when have we been able to keep Lian away from Irey?" He shared a knowing glance with Linda, but Wally just glowered at them.

"I don't like it," he said. "Superman's off-planet. What if-"

"We don't need Superman to take care of ourselves," said Linda gently. "As long as they're here, they're safe. All of them."

"Why didn't Buddy stay?" asked Roy.

"Parent-teacher conference for their son," replied Linda. "Iris suggested we sort through things from the Tower after we offered to look after Maxy."

"Speaking of that," said Roy, "I'm missing a few things from my…collection. Did Lian-"

"Yeah, she probably brought it to the Tower," said Linda, nodding. "There's plenty of weaponry that I don't recognize. Must be yours."

In a bedroom above them, Jai sat on the floor with Maxine, each holding a controller, their eyes glued to a video screen as Jai tried to coach her through the levels. "Now go up. No, up, Maxy, not-"

"Do I shoot?" she asked, sounding confused. "Are those the bad guys?"

"No! – no, Maxy, that was your team…"

Iris lay on the bed with Lian, watching her brother out of the corner of her eye. "Is Damian okay?" asked Lian quietly, her gaze fixed on Iris's freckled face. "I really thought he'd come. He hasn't seen you in a while, has he?"

"No," said Iris casually, almost as if she didn't care. "But you know how he gets. He's just pouting. I'll run him to Paris for a romantic candlelit dinner or something, and he'll be fine."

Lian giggled. "Have you actually done that before?"

Iris grinned at her. "Once or twice."

There was a short silence, except for the sounds of Maxy whining as Jai continued, determined to get her to the next level. "Did you hear about Sin?" Lian asked, and her voice was slightly raised. Jai didn't look around, but his own voice quieted slightly.

Iris didn't look at her. "She's still comatose."

"I heard that she's looking better, though. They're saying she might wake up soon."

Iris didn't reply to this.

Lian looked at her for a moment longer, then lowered her voice and asked, "Have you talked to Milly yet?"

Iris said nothing. Then she glanced at Lian and muttered, "Come on," then raised her voice to say to her brother, "Jai, Lian and I are going to my room."

Jai looked around for a moment, then shrugged. "Whatever," he said. "Keep the door open, then, kiddies. Don't get too frisky."

"Frisky?" repeated Maxy, her eyebrow raised; Lian felt her face flush, but Iris just chuckled and took Lian by the hand, heading one door down the hall to Iris's room. Iris closed the door behind them.

"Sorry," she said, turning around to smile at Lian. "I just thought we should talk about the mission privately. In case Jai goes spilling any secrets to my dad or anything."

"Good thinking," said Lian. "Um, so. Milagro."

"No," answered Iris. "She's got a twenty-four-seven GL watch on her. I saw her, but nobody saw me."

"How is she?"

"Okay. As good as she could hope to be. I could tell she feels so bad about Chris, though. I wanted to tell her it wasn't her fault, but I couldn't risk it."

"Well," said Lian, "maybe we'll all try to go visit her soon. Maybe after Chris gets back."

There was a short silence.

"How long are he and Superman going to be gone?" asked Iris quietly.

Lian shrugged. "Long enough for a close-contact solar recharge. A day or two?"

"Long enough for the end of the world."

"Superman isn't the only hero on Earth. Our parents alone could hold over the end of the world for a day or two."

Iris didn't nod. "You'd be surprised," she said.

Neither of them said anything. Then Iris put her hand to her hair and pulled out her ponytail, shaking her long red hair free. She sat down with her back against the side of her bed, then looked up at Lian and asked, "Would you braid my hair?"

Lian blinked at her, hesitated, then said, "Sure," and took a seat on the bed behind her, running her fingers through Iris's smooth hair.

Downstairs, Wally still stood apart from his wife and his friend. "Yeah, it's ridiculous that Bruce keeps that kid locked up like he does," Roy was saying, agreeing with what Linda had just said. "I mean, he's not the nicest little boy in the world, but I'd say he more than deserves to be here, right? Plus, Dick could use a day off-"

"No," said Wally. Roy and Linda looked at him. He was silent for a moment, then said, "I asked Dick not to come around anymore. Not that he would've shown up anyway, but. You know."

"What?" asked Roy. "Seriously? _Dick_? What for?"

Wally shook his head, refusing to look at him.

Realization dawned on Roy, and he sighed. Flatly, he asked, "He told you, didn't he?"

Linda looked in between Roy and Wally. "Excuse me?" she asked. "…Told you what?"

Outside of Gotham City, Wayne Manor was almost abandoned. Damian, usually studying or training, was in the city volunteering, at Alfred's insistence, at a day clinic for community service. Bruce had been the one to suggest it; it did the Waynes good to be seen in public working for the less privileged.

And, Dick suspected, Bruce was preparing to finally answer some questions.

Dick slipped into the Batcave almost silently. Bruce sat at his usual seat before the computers, flicking through files. As Dick approached him, he gave no sign to acknowledge of Dick's presence until he was standing directly behind the seat, half leaning against it.

Bruce said, "So?"

Dick looked up at the files the other man was looking at. The face of Talia al Ghul stared down at them menacingly, a hint of her typical sultry, seductive nature behind her eyes.

"So," replied Dick tiredly. "The video."

"The video."

There was a silence. "Why did you keep it from me?" asked Dick. "I trusted his word. I was totally taken in. Why did you keep it a secret? How come _he_ doesn't even know you know?"

"I kept it from you," Bruce began, ignoring Dick's last two questions, "because I wanted you to look into this. All of this."

A silence.

"In order to do that," Bruce continued, "you couldn't enter the investigation with a prior bias against him. What he did – as of now, that's unrelated. Completely. That's a situation that I will take care of. I asked you to take this case with every expectation that you _would_ believe Damian, and that you would search for every other possibility before conceding his guilt."

Another pause.

Bruce said quietly, "It seems I was correct."

Dick didn't say anything. And then, "You knew, didn't you? From the moment you asked me to figure out what happened to him in the hospital. You knew that it was Iris."

Bruce finally turned around to look at him. He met Dick's gaze with heavy, mournful eyes. "No, Dick," he said, his voice low and sad. "It's the both of them. You know that."

Dick closed his eyes and shook his head, trembling slightly. But then he let out a defeated little breath and put a hand to his head, clutching his temples. "It was my kryptonite, wasn't it?" he breathed. "That's what proved it."

Bruce didn't move, patiently waiting for Dick to finish.

"I opened my safe," said Dick quickly, the words falling out of his mouth as if he couldn't understand what it all meant, "I opened my safe right in front of him to get him the passkey to the Penthouse. Right in front of him. And then I…" He closed his eyes again, groaned, "Oh, God," and then continued, "…I left him there. With the open safe. And I didn't…I didn't even think to check until…"

Dick looked at Bruce with wide eyes, his jaw set determinedly, his gaze blurred slightly.

"He took my kryptonite," said Dick, his voice shaking. "You found _my _kryptonite in Chris's body. Damian took my kryptonite, and he gave it to Milagro to…to hurt Chris."

"He gave it to Impulse," corrected Bruce stoically, "who ran it to the Green Lantern, with her incredible speed. Her power is enormous."

"You knew about her already," murmured Dick.

Bruce bowed his head slightly in assent. "This isn't the first time she's indicated speed far beyond that of her father. I've been keeping tabs on her since she met Damian."

There was a silence. Dick took a deep breath, and stilled his shaking body.

"Have you seen his arms?" asked Bruce.

Dick looked up at Bruce, his face white. "The scars?" he asked. "The name…?"

"Bagheera," said Bruce. "The black panther from the Kipling stories."

"Yeah," said Dick. "I don't understand how…" he broke off, then looked up at Bruce. "Did he show you those?" he asked.

Bruce didn't reply immediately, then said, "No. He's been actively trying to hide them from me, in fact."

"But of course you know," said Dick. "You know everything."

There was a pause.

Then Dick asked, "So what does it mean? And what does it have to do with Damian and Iris?"

Bruce didn't say anything for a very long moment. Then he stood up, and he began to head out of the cave.

"What?" said Dick. "We're not done here! Where are you going?"

As they ascended the stairs, Bruce said quietly, "Have you been into Damian's room lately?"

Dick watched Bruce cautiously, fear souring in his stomach. "No," he said. "You know he doesn't let anybody in there without his permission. Not even Alfred."

"Exactly," said Bruce simply, gravely.

He was silent as they reached the end of the stairs, and then turned to lead Dick towards Damian's room: the closest bedroom in the house to the entrance of the Batcave.

They stood before Damian's door for a moment, and then Bruce opened it. He paused and looked at Dick, who met his gaze, fear plain in his eyes, and then, gently, Bruce said, "Beside the bed."

Dick tore his eyes away from Bruce's, and entered the room. A faint, sickly familiar odor filled the room. Ignoring this, Dick went to the side of Damian's bed, where a simple rug lay on the hardwood floor, beneath a bedside table with a small lamp on it.

He knelt down and inspected the rug. There was a small, dark mark in the center. He reached out and rubbed at it with his thumb, then sniffed his finger.

He looked around at Bruce.

"Blood," he said.

There was a silence.

"That could have come from anything," said Dick suddenly, defensively, straightening up. "He has a million cuts every night when he comes home from patrol. So he busted a few stitches. That doesn't mean anything."

"Dick," said Bruce gently. "I know you can smell that."

Dick put a hand to cover his nose, distraught, and then looked around the room. "Blood," he breathed again, his eyes rolling across the walls. "It smells like old blood."

Bruce didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Dick dropped to the floor and scanned under the bed, then pulled out the drawers of Damian's dresser, then swung the doors of his wardrobe open and rifled through the clothes. Nothing. He stopped abruptly to collect himself, to get that shaking out of his chest. And then he turned to the closet.

It was a large closet, like all of those in the house. The second Dick opened it, a gust of the smell burst into the room and, grimacing, Dick reached into it, searching the shelves for-

He froze.

Bruce said nothing. He was staring straight at Dick, but he didn't even move.

"Oh, God," moaned Dick.

He pulled something out of the closet. A heap of bedclothes. A white sheet, from the look of it, and a linen bed shirt.

Both stained with red.

Dick dropped the bundle onto Damian's bed and then, hands shaking, spread it out slightly. "No," he muttered. "Oh, no. No, no, no. _Damian_. No."

He pulled something from the sheets, something wrapped tightly but delicately.

A long, thin carving knife. Just small enough to slice small grooves into the skin. To carve words in flesh, maybe.

Dick held the thing in his hands, and looked up at Bruce, terror clutching at his heart, and tears in his eyes.

In the West household, Wally's voice was slowly rising, his rage and indignation painted all over his face. "How could you keep this from me?" he hissed at Roy. "You and Dick – we're supposed to be _friends_, don't you remember? How could you go off and – and _conspire_ with him, and leave me in the dark!"

"She's your daughter," said Roy stonily. "We weren't going to dump that on you until we were completely sure-"

"-which, apparently, _he_ is!"

"Hold on," interrupted Linda; she was more in control than the two men, but outrage was still shaking in her voice, "you didn't think that it was important to _tell _me this, Wally?"

"It's a stupid suspicion," insisted Wally. "It doesn't mean a damn thing!"

"Fine, it doesn't!" agreed Roy loudly. "Just calm down, alright! Nobody's pointing _any_ fingers right now. You can _be_ upset – I know I would be if this were Lian we were talking about – but we don't have to tear anything apart because of this. Not us, and definitely not the kids."

There was a sour silence. Linda stood apart from them, refusing to look at her husband.

"We just need to keep an open mind, that's all," said Roy lowly. "Until this all gets sorted out, let's just face it. All the kids are in danger-"

"All the _rest_ of them, you mean."

Roy shot an ugly look at Wally, then continued, "…and it's possible that any of them may be implicated. Milagro was."

Wally let out a frustrated sigh. "I can't believe it," he said. "I can't believe I'm hearing this from _you_."

"Wally, please," said Linda. "Roy's right. The simple fact of the matter is that we can't afford to rule any possibilities out, and-"

"Not you too!"

He looked between the two of them helplessly. Then, at last, he relented, his shoulders falling in defeat.

"Do any of them know?" he asked.

"No," said Roy. "Dick told me his suspicion and nobody else. He promised me that he wouldn't tell Damian. And of course I wouldn't tell Lian. It'd break her heart."

Wally looked at them again, something heavy and grim in his eyes. "They should know," he said. "They've been through enough. They should all know."

At that moment, Lian was still braiding Iris's long hair, mostly in silence. Lian reached out to collect a lock of Iris's hair from before her ear, beside her face. Even as she began to pull her hand away, Iris raised her own hand to her face, and gently took hold of Lian's fingers.

A chill ran through Lian's body. She said nothing. Iris held her hand for a moment, then leaned back against the bed, pressing Lian's hand onto her cheek.

"I'm sorry about this," whispered Iris, into Lian's palm.

For a second, Lian couldn't speak, and then her emotions rose in her chest and she couldn't contain it any longer, and she said, "You shouldn't be. You didn't do anything. It's not your fault for being the way you are. It's my fault. I shouldn't be…I shouldn't have…"

Lian trailed off, as Iris slid her hand down her face and pressed it against her lips. "I'm sorry," she repeated, under her breath now. "I'm sorry, Lian."

The door swung open, without a knock; Iris pulled Lian's hand away from her mouth, but did not let her go. "Girls," said Wally, but Iris saw his eyes flicker from where their hands touched to her eyes before he spoke, "we need to talk to you downstairs. Right now."

Iris and Lian looked at each other, then nodded. Standing up, Iris said, "Be right there, Dad," when suddenly, there was an odd, strangled, shrieking sound from the next room. Before anyone else could react, Wally's eyes went wide, and he dashed aside, wrenching the door open – Iris called, "They're just playing videogames!" but then Wally uttered, "Oh, my _God_."

There was an awful snarling, like that of a wild beast, and something small and humanoid flung itself onto Wally, tearing at his face and eyes and neck; Linda, by the stairs, screamed in terror, but it wasn't for what was attacking Wally, it was for the sight in Jai's room, and she barreled past her husband altogether, screaming, "_Jai! Jai!_" because the boy was lying on the floor before his videogame, making gross, gurgling sounds as blood poured from his neck, his stomach covered in blood, but from his throat or another wound there, it was impossible to tell – Linda fell to her knees beside her bleeding son, screaming, her shaking hands scrambling across his body as if to scoop the blood back inside the warm cavity where his throat used to be, and she was drenched in blood, and he was drenched in blood, the exposed skin of his face, where not covered in blood, a dull, pale purple-white, the color of a corpse.

And a loud _bang_ rang out and the animal thing fell to the floor, but Wally was already beside her, already collecting his son in his arms, already gone, leaving a wet puddle on the floor and his sobbing, blood-soaked wife. Roy was beside her immediately. "It's okay," he said steadily. "It's okay, it's okay, Wally's gonna get him to a hospital, it's okay, Linda. Don't panic. You can't panic right now, Linda, your kids need you. It's okay. It's gonna be okay."

Her sobbing lessened slightly, became less hysterical. "Th-that thing," she gasped, staring with wide, fearful eyes towards the doorway. "It…it…"

"Oh my God," said Lian, who was standing outside of Iris's room, covering her mouth with her hands. She took an unsteady step forward and knelt down beside the creature. "Oh, my God," she repeated, looking up at her father, terrified. "It's Maxy. Daddy. You shot Maxy. Did she-" all color bled from her face as she witnessed the scene in Jai's room. Weakly, she asked, "Did she do this?"

"I don't know," said Roy, and he had to fight to keep panic from rising within him as well. Blood staining his knees where he had been kneeling and his arms and chest where he had been holding Linda, he stood up and returned to the small, prone body. The clothes were torn, the face disfigured in an ugly snarl, and one leg twitched slightly, but it was undeniably Maxine.

"Did you kill her?" whispered Lian.

Roy glanced at her. "You know I don't carry any lethal weapons."

"Yeah, nonlethal – for full-grown adults. She's a _kid_."

Roy didn't say anything. He slid his arms under the girl's tiny body and lifted her up into his arms. Lian whispered, "Did she kill him?"

Roy didn't reply.

He said, "Lian, call Buddy on my phone, right now. Linda, get through to Wally. He should have his communicator on him, keep trying until you reach him. Iris-"

He turned around and for a moment, his heart froze in fear as he didn't see the other girl, Jai's sister. But then he noticed her, still standing in the doorway of her room, watching him with big, cold green eyes.

"Iris," he said again, uncertainly. "…Help your mother."

Iris nodded, but there was something about her movements – some quality of speed, some degree of stillness – that seemed far too slow.

She flickered for a moment, then was gone, by her mother's side, providing hugs and comfort and quiet, whispered words of reassurance, but in that single second her hard, blank gaze sent a threatening, tingling chill down the length of his spine.


	10. Blood

Chapter Ten: Blood

_"Lighting candles, signing petitions  
blocking intersections, chanting,  
walking until my feet are blistered  
shouting until my throat is raw  
I'm trying so hard to change things  
but I can't even get the blood off my hands"  
_-Daphne Gottlieb, from "No Poetry after Auschwitz"

"I want her _out of here!_" shouted Wally; he was trembling in anger, his motions blurred slightly by his superspeed, dodging Roy's attempts to pull him back. "Jai is in there _dying_ because of her! I want her _gone!_"

Buddy Baker stood in front of a small hospital room protectively, looking up at Wally with deep, tired eyes.

"Wally," said Roy, finally taking hold of his friend's shoulder tightly. "Wally, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but they can't – Maxine needs medical attention too, they can't just-"

"She's dangerous!" spat Wally, wrenching himself out of Roy's grip. "She tried to – she almost – _Jesus_, I…"

Wally looked around, tears streaked down his face. He shook his head, wiped his hands across his cheeks and muttered, "Buddy…I don't mean…"

He collapsed onto the floor, his back pressed against a wall, his hands at his head, clutching his hair tightly. Behind Roy, Iris, her own eyes wet and red, looked around from where her mother held her tightly. She pulled away from Linda and went to kneel beside her father, putting her arms around him. "It's okay, Daddy," she said, a choked sob in her voice. "Jai's gonna be okay."

Wally took her, and touched his forehead to his daughter's bright hair wordlessly. Linda turned away from them, as if unable to bear the sight, and closed her eyes tightly, one palm flat against the cold, hospital wall and the other covering her mouth.

It wasn't long after that the space outside the operating room began to fill; Dinah mentioned to Roy in a hushed tone that Oliver was with Sin – just in case. They couldn't afford not to take any precaution at the moment. Barry came with Iris, Jay with Joan, and Bart showed up as well. He and Irey sat down away from the rest of them and began to talk, lapsing into speedtalk so quickly that even Wally would have had trouble trying to keep up. But Wally just sat there, his face white and stricken, too panicked to respond to his family's gentle reassurances.

And then the sounds of hurried footsteps resounded towards the closed hall, and a door swung open and a boy stood there, panting slightly, his eyes wide and open and afraid in such a way that Wally almost didn't even recognize him.

"Iris," he gasped, ignoring everyone and turning to where she sat with Kid Flash. He knelt beside her, but was so unsteady that he was almost falling, and with what looked like barely a movement on either of their parts, they were suddenly embracing, clutching to each other tightly, two halves drawn together. Her shoulders shook slightly, and he held her body with one arm, brushing through her hair with his other hand, gently rubbing against her head.

Dick appeared after Damian, and he greeted Wally with a tight embrace. "How is he?" he asked gravely, pulling away slightly. Wally shook his head.

"I don't…we don't really…"

Dick nodded and pulled him into another embrace. "He'll be okay," he said. "Nobody can keep a West down for long."

Damian helped Iris to her feet, and then began to pull her away, heading away from them all. Wally's eyes slid from Dick's face to his daughter to Damian, his hand entwined with hers, and then he was standing before the two of them, blocking their path.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but you two need to stay."

"Daddy-" Iris began to protest, but her father cut her off.

"I know, honey," he said. "But after what happened…and _Maxy_, too, I…"

Damian nodded. "Of course," he said, looking at Iris. "We'll stay."

Wally nodded, and then he was back beside Dick, who still watched Damian and Iris. He looked back at Wally, who didn't meet his gaze.

He muttered, "You shouldn't be here."

Dick felt his heart sink. "Look, Wally," he said, "I'm sorry. I was…it's more…I need to…" he trailed off, the truth freezing in his mouth. He glanced past Wally, and he briefly met Roy's tired gaze. No. He couldn't tell Wally, not now. Not yet.

Wally nodded, pressing a hand against his head, as if to hide the tears collecting in his eyes again. "I know," he said. "You were…you were right, Dick. The team is compromised, but it wasn't Iris. Maxine, she – she-"

"You're right," he said, and the words tasted bitter in his mouth. "But we know now, Wally. He'll be okay. They'll all be okay."

Damian and Iris didn't leave the room, but they retreated to the alcove besides the doors to the OR, and, her back pressed against the wall, they embraced again. Only a few others in the room could see them, tucked away in their corner. In particular, they could feel Roy's eyes on them, and, to an extent, Lian's as well.

"Are you okay?" Damian breathed into her ear, his hands running across her body, her arms, as if to ensure she wasn't wounded. "Are you okay, are you okay?"

"I'm not hurt," she sighed, in a whisper, as if the words were a release. "I'm n- I-IIIIIIIII'mmmm_nothurt_, _itwasMaxyshehurthimshehurthimshe_-"

"Iris!" hissed Damian, arms reaching up to hold her, stepping before her slightly as if to shield her from the others. "Iris, come on, you have to keep it together, Irey, please-"

"_It'smyfaultmy_fauuuult_Ilefthimwithheritwas_meeeeeee_andLi_aaaaaaaaan-"

"Don't, don't break on me now, Irey, you've got your whole family here, do it for them, you've got to be okay _for them_…"

Her breathing quickened and he could feel her chest rising and falling against his own, an unrelenting tattoo moving in rhythm with her heart – her heart, beating so fast that its pulse seemed to disappear. Her whole being, her very atoms shivered in his arms, and then she settled, and fell limply into his embrace.

"I can't," she whispered, and her voice was full of fear. "I'm losing it, Damian. I can barely…stay here. It's like…without him…"

"He's still alive," said Damian grimly. "He's not gone, and you're still here too. You are both still here."

She didn't reply to this, only held him tighter.

Damian hesitated, then, still holding her, said, "I made sure Milagro knew, before I left. They wouldn't let her leave. I would have challenged them, but I wanted to – I had to be here."

"Thank…you," said Iris, with visible effort. "I'm glad that…you should be here."

They pulled away. "Come on," said Damian lowly. "You should be with your family, not with me."

He took her hand and turned around to lead her away, but before he moved he met Red Arrow's gaze, focused on the two of them, an edge in his eye. Roy looked away immediately, but there was something about the harsh, tense way he stood that gave away far more than Damian was sure he intended.

Hours passed. Eventually, Linda began to quietly ask that the others left; she sat beside her husband, then, holding his arm silently. Lian joined Iris and Damian, but even as they shared knowing looks, they refused to speak. Iris was still shuddering slightly.

Roy and Dick hung back, near the doors. For a moment, they said nothing, and then Roy muttered, "So I guess we weren't prepared for this one."

Dick didn't look at him, his gaze still fixed on Wally and Linda. "No," he said quietly. "We didn't even consider…"

There was a silence. Roy looked at Wally, then glanced at his daughter. Lowly, he said, "We should have known."

Neither of them said anything. Then, even more quietly, just above a whisper, Dick said, "It's Damian, you know."

Roy didn't reply immediately. Dick added, voice hardly above a whisper, "The both of them."

Nothing.

Roy asked gently, "What are you going to do?"

Resolutely, Dick shrugged, refusing to let his emotion show on his face. "This has to end," he continued. "Bruce and I…we'll take care of Damian. I need you to stay here, keep an eye on Iris. We'll be back for her."

"Of course."

The silence that hung between them then was heavy and stifling, but Dick didn't bow under its weight. He made no indication of his fear, or his disappointment, or his burden as he called Damian's name. The boy looked up, Dick jerked his head to say, _We're leaving_, and then Dick approached Wally and Linda to say his goodbyes as Damian did the same with his small team.

"This_ssdoesn't_- this doesn't change anything," said Iris carefully, measuring her every word. Lian held her hand tightly, her brow knitted in concern. "We're not…_done_here."

"Yeah," said Lian. "It's time we started taking action."

Damian nodded, looking between them. "You wait until Jai is out," he said steadily, reaching out to brush his fingers against Iris's jaw. "You see him. And then we go."

Lian glanced at him, then back to Iris. "We'll rendezvous at the Tower as soon as possible." She paused, then added, "Titans Together. Right?"

Iris nodded, but her head bobbed just slightly too fast; it looked unnatural, and instead of looking at her, Lian and Damian found them looking at one another.

Damian leaned in and lowered his voice even more. "You know what this means," he said earnestly. "We won't be playing by their rules anymore. We won't let them interrogate us anymore. They can't have any control over us anymore, if we're going to take care of this."

Lian looked at him, something strange written across her face. Then, hesitantly, she nodded. "Yeah," she said. "We're no heroes anymore. Not if that's what it takes."

Damian bowed his head in consent. Iris said, "Yes," but cut herself off too quickly, as if afraid her mouth would no longer obey her mind.

The boy took Iris's hand and then, after a moment's hesitation, took Lian's as well. "I'll see you soon," he said, and then he stood and followed Dick away.

When they returned to Wayne Manor, Bruce was still in the Cave. For a moment, Dick considered taking Damian down there as well, but then he hesitated. The boy headed towards his room, and Dick followed him, standing by the door – which Damian left wide open – as he gently laid himself down on his bed, covering his eyes with one arm. He didn't look up, but Dick knew that he was aware of Dick's presence. There was a long silence. Dick glanced at the drop of blood, still visible on the carpet beside Damian's bed, then at Damian's bookcase, where a tiny camera was hidden, recording the room with full audio from its perch.

Dick said, "Damian…"

The boy didn't look up. "I'm tired," he said. "Let me sleep."

"Look…Damian…"

"I'm _tired_."

His voice was sharp, but he didn't even look up at Dick. The older man hesitated again, then nodded. "Okay," he said, reaching for the doorknob. "I'll leave you alone." He didn't move, and then he turned away, closing the door behind him, and stood there motionlessly for a moment in the hallway, facing the closed door.

A great weight pressed on his shoulders, his back. He leaned his forehead on the steady door, feeling his energy and drive drain out of him, puddle on the floor. He didn't know anything anymore. Where his heart should be felt cold, and hollow.

Hours passed. In the dull artificial glow of hospital lights, the West family clung to each other; at times, Linda would pull away from her husband, her face pale white, devoid of color, her hands balled into fists, lips tight and flat. Iris held her mother, and sometimes her father, but most of the time she sat at their feet, her legs curled into her chest, leaning her head against her mother's legs. And there was silence. There was utter silence, pervading and tense, hanging above all of their heads, threatening to fall against them at any minute.

Lian and Roy stayed at the hospital, but at Linda's silent looks towards them, they left the family alone. Maxine was in the hospital as well, lying in a hospital bed, bandaged and unconscious but otherwise unharmed. She breathed deeply and rhythmically, in tune to the gentle hum and whir of medical instruments around her. Her mother and her brother Cliff were both there, sitting beside her. Lian slipped to one side of her bed, looking down on the small child.

"How is she?" asked Roy quietly. Ellen looked up at him with heavy eyes.

"She's fine," she replied. "Buddy says she was channeling some sort of big cat when you got her, as far as he can tell. The shot didn't damage her much."

Lian looked up, her dark eyes glinting slightly.

Roy asked, "Are you sure Buddy shouldn't be here? If she loses it again, I'd rather we were prepared this time."

"She's got big game-grade tranquilizers running through her system," said Ellen, softly. "She's not going to wake up." She paused, then added, "If she were going to, it would've happened by now. If she felt threatened, instinct would've taken over and…well…"

She didn't meet Roy's gaze.

Roy looked back at the tiny body in the bed. "They get the tox results back yet?"

"The doctors say she's clean," she sighed. "But I was told that Buddy took some of her blood to Batman. No word yet, there."

There was a silence.

Then Lian asked, her voice hovering just above a whisper, "Missus Baker?"

The woman looked up, her gaze heavy and tired. "Yes?"

Lian stared at Maxine's small body on the bed, at the IV attached to her arm, sheets pulled up to her neck. "Could you tell for certain what kind of animal powers she was accessing?" she asked, a hard, serious note entering her voice.

Ellen glanced at Roy, then back to Lian, shaking her head. "Not exactly," she said. "Buddy said some kind of big cat. Like a tiger, or a leopard maybe."

Lian stared at the girl.

"Or a panther," she uttered, under her breath.

She turned and swept out of the room abruptly, without looking at her father. Roy began, "Lian, what…?" then murmured, "Ellen, I'm sorry-" but the woman nodded her understanding, and Roy left as well, following his daughter. Lian had pulled out a small cell phone – something perhaps more akin to a communicator – and pressed a few buttons, put it to her ear. "Lian," said Roy, catching up to her. "Honey, I-"

She held up her hand to silence him. "Damian," she said, a steely determination in her eyes. "Cancel the plan. If I'm right, then we need to stay away from each other. Can't afford any more losses. Call back when you get this, we'll figure something out."

She pulled the phone away from her ear, and Roy said, "Hey," but she didn't turn around to look at him. "Lian. Hey." He reached out and took hold of her wrist.

With a single deft movement, she twisted his arm sharply, causing him to cry out in pain and let go of her. A silence fell over the two of them, and he took an uncertain step backwards.

She blinked at him, then turned away. "Don't get involved, Dad," she said, an odd softness in her voice.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, but tried to ignore the suspicion rising in his chest. "With what?" Lian didn't answer. "Hon, if you're talking about – all of this – then I'd say I'm already pretty involved." Nothing. "Why did you just call Damian?" he asked uneasily. "Cancel the plan? Cancel what plan? What's going on? What are you two doing?"

"Nothing," she said.

"Don't lie."

"I'm not," she said, and this time she turned around to look her father in the eye. "I'm not lying," she repeated. "I'm not planning anything with Damian."

There was a long silence.

And then, a pained note in his voice, Roy finally admitted, "It's him. You know that, don't you?"

Lian stared at him.

Then her voice, like a poisonous mist, creeping across the space between them, filling the quiet hall. "Damian did this?"

Roy nodded.

Lian looked away from her father, then back to him.

"He did all of this?" she asked again, a fire beginning to burn in her chest. "He made – he's responsible for what Maxy did? And Milly too?"

Roy hesitated, then bowed his head slightly.

"So Jai is – he's in _there_, and Chris is in space, and – and _Sin_ has been in the hospital for weeks now…because of _Damian_?"

Roy didn't need to nod to affirm what she already knew. She put a shaking hand to her head.

"Where is he?" she whispered. "Is he – you've caught him, right? That's why he didn't answer. You've got him. Right?"

"Soon," said Roy. "Bruce and Dick are going to take care of him."

"Take _care_ of him?" asked Lian, her voice smoldering with danger. "I don't want anyone to take _care _of him. I want – I want him…" she let out a loud, frustrated breath, her composure slipping, beginning to tremble. "You know!" she said, pointing an accusatory finger at her father. "You _know_ and you're leaving it up to _them?_ Bruce is his _father_, Dad. They're not going to do what needs to be done. They're going to protect him, you know that. He probably knew. He probably knew and has been protecting him this whole time."

Her words were spilling out of her mouth too quickly, without her thought or consideration; Roy took a step towards her, beginning to murmur, "Baby, come on…"

She took a step away from him, her eyes wide. "How do you know," she whispered, "how do you know that Bruce hasn't been orchestrating this whole thing? How do you know that this isn't – this isn't some sort of, of crazy power play?"

"Lian, stop," he said firmly. "You know the moment we start doubting our allies is the moment everything falls apart."

"That moment came and went for me a _long _time ago," she said, a warning in her voice, taking another step away from him. "But we were _right_. All those suspicions and fears we had – we were _right_." She stared at him, fright in her eyes, her breath long and heavy. "What if this is bigger than just the Titans, Dad?"

Roy felt a tight, clutching feeling in his chest. "No," he said resolutely. "Lian, calm down. You're getting paranoid."

"I have every right to be! My teammates – they're all…" she sucked in a sudden breath, then looked down the hall, to the door leading to where Iris still sat with her parents. "How many times…how many chances did he have…"

Roy bit his tongue. He reached out to his daughter. "Lian-"

She whipped around, her hand sailing through the air, connecting solidly with the side of her father's face. He staggered back a few paces, letting out a shocked oath, raising his own hand to gingerly touch his cheek, a fake tooth in the back of his mouth loosened by the blow. He looked up at her, shocked.

"How long have you known?" she asked harshly.

He looked at her, brought his sleeve to his mouth and dabbed a spot of blood from his lips, then opened his mouth to speak, and then-

The unmistakable sounds of movement and voices behind closed doors. The both of them looked around, then Lian didn't hesitate, heading back to where the West family anxiously waited. Roy followed her, his hand still at his jaw.

"-but he'll be okay?" Wally was asking the doctor, weakly. "As soon as his injuries heal, he'll be just fine?"

The doctor nodded. "He'll need to be on a ventilator until his lungs heal completely. A few months of physical therapy once he's recovered and he'll be good as new."

Wally let out an audible sigh of relief. "Can we see him?" asked Linda. The doctor nodded, gave them a reassuring smile, and took them through another door, leaving Roy and Lian in the room alone together. Lian let out a little sniffle, putting a hand to her face, turning away, hiding her tears. Roy didn't reach out to her this time, but gently said her name again, extending as much love and support to his daughter as he could in a single word.

"No," she said, waving her hand at him without looking up. "No, Daddy, I just…I just need a second…" She sniffed, and then murmured, "I'm just…I'm going out to the car. I'll be right back."

She left.

Once he was sure she was far enough away that she wouldn't see, he slipped out as well, following his daughter.

Wayne Manor was cold and silent, despite its unusual number of inhabitants, deep in the middle of the night, when they would usually be out in the city, patrolling the streets. Dick was sitting against Damian's door, his head hanging between his knees, when he heard Bruce's heavy footfalls coming down the hallway. He looked up. Bruce stood there, his eyes dark but expressionless, looking down on him.

"It's time," he said. "Bring him to the Cave."

Dick didn't say anything, didn't even move. Bruce paused, then turned around and disappeared down the hallway again. Dick was left there in the silence; he got to his feet. He turned to the door and knocked, calling Damian's name.

Damian's voice, muffled by the door in between them. "What."

"Hey, we need you down in the Cave."

There was a silence. Then a gentle rustling of movement from within, and the door swung open. "Of course," said Damian gravely. "Duty calls." His hair was slightly disheveled, but, Dick noted painfully, his eyes were not red. He swept past Dick, running a hand through his hair, following Bruce's trail down the hall, towards the entrance of the Cave. Dick noticed, upon glancing into the boy's room shortly, that Damian had left his communicator at his bedside. He left to change into his uniform, and Dick didn't stop him. He only headed down to where Bruce was sitting in front of the computer screen.

A few minutes later, Damian joined them. "Aren't you coming, Dick?" asked Damian, but without any trace of humor, tugging on his gloves. "Or will Batman and Robin be unaccomp…" he trailed off, as Bruce turned in his seat and Damian saw that they were both out of uniform. Instantly, suspicion coursed through his veins. "What's going on?" he asked, his body tensing slightly. "Why aren't you ready for patrol?"

"You're not going out tonight, Damian," said Dick, almost apologetically. "None of us are."

A silence. It reverberated in the cave, like the flapping of leathery wings in the churning darkness, a threat hanging just above their heads, the massive, delicate structure above them about to collapse. And suddenly, without a word spoken, everything seemed clear, laid out before them with an ugly, undeniably simplicity.

His leg twitched slightly, as if he were about to take an uncertain step back, but he held his ground almost defiantly. "What is it?" he demanded, the tremor in his voice tingling down each of their spines.

Bruce turned back to the computer and said, "Dick."

Dick took something and said, "Damian, we need a blood sample."

"Blood?" echoed Damian, still staring at Bruce's seat. "Why?"

The screen changed; the results of a tox screen. "Maxine Baker's blood came back positive," said Bruce, without turning around, "to a version of a mind-controlling drug known to be used by Slade Wilson."

"And you think someone's drugged _me_?" asked Damian, pulling his arm away from Dick, who was trying to pull off Damian's glove. "You really think I would let _Slade_ control me again?"

"No," said Bruce shortly. "I don't."

A shot of fear ran through Damian. "Then you don't have to test," he said indignantly. "You have no reason to."

"Damian," said Dick painfully. "Please don't make me force you."

The boy looked at Dick warily, then pulled up his glove and held out his arm, rolling up his sleeve. "I'm not drugged," he said. "I never was."

"This test might tell us that," said Bruce. "Or it might not."

"I wouldn't allow myself to be vulnerable like that," said Damian coldly. "You know that. You both know how careful I am."

"Damian," said Bruce, ignoring the boy's comments, typing something into the computer, "why did you take Dick's kryptonite?"

Dick looked up, something like shame on his face. "Bruce-"

"What?" asked Damian, irritation in his voice, glancing at Dick, then pulling his arm violently away from the man as soon as Dick took the needle out of Damian's arm. "What are you talking about? What kryptonite?"

Bruce – still without turning around – held up a small, clear plastic bag containing a small silver of green rock. "A substantial amount of the kryptonite I found on Superboy's body came from a piece Dick has been carrying for years now. You were in a position to take that kryptonite the day before the attack."

"That's preposterous," said Damian, a small, unimpressed scoff in his voice. "I would never."

"Your arms, then."

Dick took hold of Damian's forearm forcefully; Damian didn't struggle at first, until Dick began to pull at his arm to expose the scarred flesh on the underside of his forearm. For a moment, Damian almost tore his arm out of Dick's grasp, then the letters were exposed – _BAGHEERA_ – and then he relented, ignoring Dick completely, looking up at his father. "What?" asked Damian, his voice rising with anger. "What? Have you figured it all out? Caught and chained my mysterious attacker yet, the one who branded my body? Have you found him?"

Bruce said, "Yes."

He held up a slim knife with one hand.

"This was in your room," he said. "Wrapped in sheets. Very sloppy. I would have expected you to burn them, at the very least."

"What are you saying?" demanded Damian. "What's going on?"

"This _knife_," said Bruce, finally turning around to look at his son, his eyes burning and glinting in the dim artificial lights of the cave, "had your blood on it. Old blood. Just as much that would have bled from those wounds on your arms."

Damian stared at his father. "_What?_" he asked, and there was hardly any defiance in his voice, only confusion. "That's absurd. I don't know who did this. It wasn't – _why_ would I do this to myself?"

"I don't know," said Bruce suddenly, his voice ringing through the Cave with all the authority and intimidation of the Batman, but edged with something more raw, something more dangerous, a sort of wild, passionate anger and fear. "I don't know, Damian. Why would you?"

A threatening, roaring silence.

"Slade Wilson," Bruce continued, his voice lower now, "was one of your teachers. Wasn't he." It was not a question. Damian didn't answer. "You know that drug. You know how to make it and obtain it. You know Wilson's history with the Titans." A pause. "You even went to your mother for supplies."

"I didn't," said Damian roughly, a stubborn insistence in his voice. "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't. I wouldn't. You know me." He paused, looked at Dick, then back at his father. "You _know_ me. Whatever evil or spite you think me capable of – you are _still_, both of you are _still _judging me for my past. I've changed. You know I've changed. You were the _first_ to know I-"

Bruce turned back to the computer, pressed a single button, and a video without sound began to play on the screen. Damian fell silent, and he said no words as the events unfolded on the huge screen, blurry but still so unmistakable. As Damian, in the video, fell and lay motionless, Bruce stopped the video. But it stayed on the screen, a small gash of red and yellow in gray.

"No," said Damian hollowly. "No, no. I lost the line. I lost my grip. It didn't happen that way, there was a wound on my palm and holding the line tore it open, and I lost it. That's what happened."

"A wound on your hand?" asked Bruce. "Show me."

Damian stared at him, then took his right hand in his left, pressing a thumb against his palm, searching for a tender area, for some hint of a scar. There was nothing there.

Silence. Damian stared, disbelievingly, at the unblemished skin of his palm.

"Dick," said Bruce. "Would you leave us?"

Dick didn't move. And then he let go of Damian, and muttered, "Yeah," and turned away, heading up the stairs, out of the Cave.

A deep nothingness, except for the hum of electronic equipment – the light flurry, somewhere overhead, of bats come home to roost – the creaking and groaning of the old house above them. Outside, the city hovered somewhere between night and dawn. Inside the Cave, an eternal artificial night hung over the two of them.

Bruce stood up. He took careful, measured steps until he stood before his son. Damian was no longer the child he had been when they first met; he stood taller now, his shoulders broader, but in his eyes was that same sharp defiance, a challenge, rage leveled with hardy determination. Bruce recognized those eyes. They were so like his own.

"We know, Damian," he said heavily. "And nobody's abandoning you. We can help you. But this has to end now."

Damian took a step away from his father. "No," he said, shaking his head, his eyes on the ground, a frown on his brow. "No, I…" He put his hands to his head. "No, no, no. Something's wrong. Something's all wrong."

"Damian-"

"_NO!_"

His voice echoed through the Cave; a flurry of bats, uprooted, flew through the lower caverns, then settled.

Damian stared at his father, an expression of fury and terror painted across his features. "It's not me," he said, but it was more like a plea. "It's not me, Father, I swear. I wouldn't. Never. They're – they're my _friends_. I wouldn't – none of us would ever-"

He shook; his eyes widened and he clutched his wrist with one hand.

"It wasn't me," he murmured, staring hard at the ground, his mind racing, "but…it was…"

He looked back at his father. "I'm sorry, Damian," he rumbled, deep in his chest, sincerity, as much as Damian had ever heard, in his voice. He reached out, planted a firm hand on Damian's arm.

The boy took his father's arm in his own hand, and nodded, his confidence slowly and obviously draining. "Yes," he said, slouching, as if about to collapse. "Yes, I…"

He looked up and met his father's gaze, and then his hand darted up abruptly and unexpectedly, and two fingers connected solidly with the center of Bruce's forehead. A moment of tense silence – every muscle in Damian's body was taut and ready to move – and then, slowly, almost comically, the older man began to fall.

Damian caught him and, straining beneath the sheer bulk of his father, gently lowered the man to the ground. Kneeling, he murmured, "This ends, now."

He straightened up. He rolled down his sleeve once again, tugged on his glove, and disappeared in the darkness of the cave. Ignoring the approaching dawn, Damian headed back with a singular goal in mind, pounding in his head. He had left his commlinks at the Manor. It didn't matter. He had to see her, he had to speak to her. He had to tell her.

It seemed almost too easy. Iris's parents were gone; Damian had caught a glimpse of them, as confirmation, in another room, their voices too far away to make out distinctly, but the expression on their faces – their jarring, sharp gestures silently echoing their pain and anger – told him everything. The sour, sick feeling in his stomach rose to his throat.

Roy Harper, presumably meant to keep an eye on Iris, to wait just outside Jai's room, was all but unconscious, a half-empty Styrofoam cup full of coffee in his hand. This was strange, and it made Damian cautious, slow and wary.

Jai's hospital room was filled with the dull buzz of medical equipment. Tubes attached to his nose, mouth, and the hole in his throat. Machines pumping oxygen in and out of his lungs. The gentle beeping of stable vitals. His form seemed dwarfed by the supplies surrounding him, all but running his own body for him. By his bed sat his sister, holding one of his hands tightly.

There was a silence.

Iris turned her head slightly, her green eyes locking on Damian, standing there behind her silently. Her whole body seemed to flicker slightly, as if slipping in and out of existence.

"I know," she said, sounding slow and tired, a certain sluggishness in her heavy-lidded eyes. "But I…can't leave…him."

Damian stared at her.

"You have to, Iris," he said.

She watched him.

He took a few steps forward, his trembling gait betraying his unsteadiness, his fear. "Irey," he began, softly now. "Irey. My father. He thinks he knows what's going on."

She looked back at her brother.

Damian reached out, took hold of her; she became, somehow, suddenly, substantially more solid, and her expression softened into one that Damian had seen so rarely, and it was like looking in a mirror, all the pain and the vulnerability and the unwillingness, the simple, true unwillingness to say it out loud, to admit it, to finally see themselves for what they really were.

"He thinks it's us, Irey," he said, and there was desperation in his voice. His hand on her arm curled around her back, and he was holding her. She didn't move in return. She only held her brother's hand. "He says we did all of this."

She didn't say anything.

He let her go.

"I think he's right," he said, trying to take control of the trembling in his voice. "You did. I did." A pause. "Milagro, and Maxine. We all did. We're all a part of it. Doesn't it all make sense? The way they're damaged, not dead. The way we've been part of a larger picture this whole time, the way they've been manipulating us, like puppets on strings."

He paused. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

"They did this," he continued, and his voice was stronger now. "They broke us. Because they don't trust us. Of course they don't."

Iris looked up at Damian. Tiredly, she asked, "What are you saying?"

"Iris. Iris, don't you _get it?_"

The anger in his voice filled the room, breaking the thin tension between them, betraying everything that bubbled just beneath his veneered surface.

He stared into her eyes, and then he reached up and tore off his mask. "Don't you see?" he asked her, his voice quieter now, more in control. "It's _them_, Iris. I was right along."

"It's _who?_"

"It's _them_," he insisted, a wild fire in his eyes. "It's the _League_. It's our _parents_."

Iris stared at him.

"Your father," continued Damian, fury pulsing in his voice, "my father. Superman. All of them. They're such – they're cowards, the way they test us, the way they try to teach us, the way they – they're _playing us, _Irey-"

"No," said Iris. "No, Damian. No. Oh, Damian. This is – this is all going to your head. You're…not…no."

He was silent. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Then what?" he asked lowly, desperately. "Then why? Why are we killing each other? Why am I-" his disgust rang clearly in his voice "How could I be a _pawn_, once again?"

"You're not," said Iris lowly, and she let go of her brother's hand, finally, and stood up, and she took hold of Damian. "You're so much more than that, Damian."

"Iris, I _need_ to know-"

"I know," she whispered, and as she held him, she became more real, more solid, more tangible. "Lian was right. Whatever it takes. You and me, we'll stop this. And whatever the cause it, we'll make them pay for what they did." She paused abruptly. Then she buried her face in his shoulder. "Look at him," she mumbled, her voice slightly muffled. "Look at him, Damian. I can't stand it. I can't stand sitting here and not knowing when he'll wake up. I can't do it."

"Can you help him?" he murmured in a reply. "Like what you did for me."

She pulled away slightly and shook her head. "No," she said quietly. "I…my connection, with the Speed Force…I can feel it tugging. Pulling."

"Pulling at you?"

She looked at him, into his open, honest eyes. "Pulling away from me," she whispered.

They stood there, their bodies pressed together, their eyes locked, for a long moment, and then their lips met in a firm, tight kiss, one that was a promise and a confession and an apology, all in one simple touch.

"Iris," Damian began, his breath under a whisper, "tell me you know how I feel."

"I know."

"I love you."

"I know, Damian."

He pressed his lips to her forehead. "You are my beloved."

She didn't reply. He stood there, holding her, his eyes closed. He ran his fingers once gently through her long hair, softly untangling the braid there.

"You are," he whispered, "my everything."

Nothing.

A flicker, and a directionless sense of panic as his arms felt suddenly empty, holding nothing, and then she materialized again, and she pulled away and reached out and put a hand over his heart and said stonily, "No, Damian. Never everything."

A push, a jolt, and suddenly his lungs were on fire, they were collapsing, every molecule of his body shivering, shifting, moving, too fast and too hard and he was moving but he didn't know how or where or in what direction and his body felt like it was being torn apart, and there were strong, firm hands on him, on him somewhere, they were a part of him, she was moving him with her, she was moving him too quickly and his skin was going to disintegrate, to disappear, to shear off and he opened his mouth to scream and-

A hand tightened around his throat, solid and strong, and he could no longer breathe but the mere feeling of something tangible touching him – of the ground, hard and gravelly, pressing against his back – sent a wave of relief through him, and his stomach tried to retch but his throat was tightly blocked, and as his eyesight stopped swimming and the blood stopped rushing through his ears, he realized – he thought he recognized –

A hard slap across his face, and he was lying flat on the ground, the hard but soft ground, hard but soft, the gentle swishes of small waves, sand, he was on a beach, he could see the sun rising, he could see, he could begin to see a Tower and he knew, somewhere in his mind, exactly where he was, but he couldn't –_ he couldn't_ – a veil of red hair hung across his vision, and a familiar weight straddling his hips, except he was still wearing his uniform and there were no kisses on his mouth, only a stinging pain and a salty – blood – he tasted blood – and no, stop, he'd only just begun to be able to see again, the black spots in his vision were coming too quickly, too soon, and his lungs cried for oxygen and there was a flicker, another _flicker_ and a brief respite, a loosening, and he took a great breath, the cold pre-dawn air stung as it filled his lungs, sweet relief – release – and his brain began to function and-

"Iris," he gasped, and the solid weight returned and a slap across his face.

"S_hhuutu_p," she spat, her very voice vibrating. "You_uuushuttttttt_ up!"

"Irey," he croaked, his voice hoarse. "What are you-"

She leaned forward, leaned in, pressing the length of her body along his, hovering her face just above his, taking his head in her hands. The sounds of waves washing across sand, and, somewhere far above them, seagulls harshly squawking, and Damian could suddenly hear nothing, see nothing but her bright green eyes looking into his searchingly.

"You_uuuu_knowhat_I'mgoinggggg_ to d_ooo_?"

His chest rose and fell rapidly, his panic restrained only by his utter confusion. "Iris," he panted, "what happened? Why did you-"

Another flicker, and she was sitting up straight again, across his hips. Flicker. Her arm was extended, her hand on his chest.

"I'm _goingtoreach _intoyour_chhhhhhhest_," she said, her voice breaking and cutting and lagging as, with a lingering flicker, her fingers sunk into his chest, vibrating so quickly they were no longer solid, and neither was his-

An unearthly, bloodcurdling cry rose from Damian's mouth, bubbling from somewhere deep in his belly, from somewhere reactive and instinctual and Damian's mind couldn't even register the very fact that he screamed, and the agony intensified and climbed, grew to a paralyzing crescendo as his chest rose and fell, so did her fingers in his body, and she hissed, "AndIwill tearoutyour_ heaaaarrrrt_."

He screamed.

Her long hair fell into his face and she stared into his eyes as her ethereal fingers closed around his heart and then-

Her hand retracted, her hair swung around with her head and Damian was left gasping, panting for breath, desperate for air, a burning in his chest as Iris shouted, so derisively, tangible enough that he could touch her, feel the weight of her familiar body on top of him, "An _arrow? One _arrow? _Icancatch _an _arrrrrrow_ inmy_sleep_-"

Her voice cut off abruptly, a sharp intake of breath, and then the flickers stopped, and then her body became solid flesh, and she let out a strangled cry, curling into her chest slightly, shaking, but not – shaking, but not vibrating – he could see her, he could see her moving, and she blinked, slow enough that he could see with his own two eyes, and she moved slowly, strangely, terrifyingly, to look at Damian with her deep, liquid eyes, and then-

And then a whistling in the morning air and her mouth opened in a silent scream, a shiver ran through her body, and she slumped over off of him onto the white sand glowing gently with the light of the sun on the horizon, the ends of her long hair just barely floating back and forth with the tender movement of the ocean delicately lapping against the shore of the sandy beach.


	11. Be not truly wise

Chapter Eleven: Be not truly wise

_"Though in life he wealth attained  
Though the praise of men he gained  
He shall join those gone before  
Where the light shall shine no more.  
Crowned with honor though he be  
Highly gifted, strong and free  
If he be not truly wise  
Man is like the beast that dies."  
_-Psalm 49, Psalter 136, "The Issues of Life," traditional funeral hymn

For a moment, he didn't move.

His skin and his insides burned, as if scraped against something solid and hard, blistering, scalded, shaking. Lying on the ground, his chest rose and fell as he gasped for the icy, salty morning air, shivering as his very molecules cooled.

He felt a roiling in his stomach and, with tremendous effort, shifted onto his side, tasting sour vomit in his mouth. He coughed, spat onto the sand beside him; then focused, cleared his mind, took control of his body with three slow breaths, and opened his eyes.

Iris was merely feet away. Her face was turned away from him, her head bobbing slightly up and down with the rhythm of the waves. He watched her bright hair in the water for a long time, then slowly became aware of a slight pressure on his lower body. His eyes flickered downward to where her legs were splayed haphazardly across his own. The weight was a familiar one, but the tangle of limbs was unsettling, an eerie mirror image of their time together, the intimacy of their touch distorted by the limpness in her body, the stillness of her chest.

Damian's spine tingled, tracing down the length of his back from the base of his neck. Stillness. It was disconcerting to see her completely still at last, but it was also a strange sort of relief, until it dawned on him that she wasn't moving at all. She was _too _still.

Placing his palms against the soft, uneven sand, Damian heaved himself up to his hands and knees, her legs sliding off his own as he moved. Unsteadily, still trembling, his stomach and throat full of bile waiting to be retched, he crawled to Iris's side and reached out his hands, hovered them just above her body.

He tried to speak, but couldn't; he paused, cleared his throat with a violent cough, expelling watery, sour saliva from his mouth, and then touched her. "Iris," he whispered hoarsely, turning her body to face him completely. Her head lolled loosely towards his body, a sliver of white just barely visible beneath her half-closed eyes. He pulled her onto his lap, then took off his gloves, pressed his fingers, fingers far warmer than they should be, onto her cheek, cold and wet from the ocean's touch. "Iris," he whispered again, panic rising from somewhere deep within him. He pressed two fingers to her neck. He took hold of her wrist, counting to ten. Feeling nothing.

There was no time to fear, no time to mourn. He pulled her out of the water, onto drier sand, and then placed two hands on her, starting rhythmic chest compressions, counting under his breath. "_One, two, three, four_…"

He reached thirty. Put fingers to her chin, cleared her airways, and lowered his mouth onto hers, breathing sweet life into her dysfunctional lungs.

"_One, two, three, four_…"

"Damian."

"…_eight, nine, ten_…"

"Damian."

"…_thirteen, fourteen, fifteen_…"

"Stop."

"No."

"Move."

"_No_."

"_Damian_."

He didn't hesitate, only pressed his mouth against Iris's again, supplying her with another breath. Then, a hand on his shoulder, roughly pulling him away.

"Stop," she said, her voice low and dangerous, kneeling beside him, reaching behind her to pull something out of her quiver. "You're not helping her."

"Her heart stopped," said Damian suddenly, his terror plain in his voice. "She's not breathing. What happened? She's not breathing, Lian."

"I know that," the other girl replied, almost as if irritated. Taking hold of the collar of Iris's shirt, she tore through the fabric down to the middle of the girl's ribcage. She pulled a modified arrow from her quiver and took a moment to adjust the arrow's device, and then she plunged the arrow straight into Iris's chest; even as Damian screamed, his fingers clawing into Lian's shoulder, towards her neck, Iris's whole body convulsed as if being pulled by invisible strings, and then she was still again and Lian took hold of the arrow and tore it from her body, leaving a small circle of red on her skin. Drops of blood pooled there.

Lian placed her hands on Iris's chest and resumed chest compressions, then, as Damian had done mere moments earlier, lowered her own mouth to Iris's. Damian's vision was slightly blurry and a fog hung across his brain, but even in such a state he saw the way her lips gently touched the other girl's, the way she lingered just a moment too long at her mouth.

He growled, "Stop."

Lian pulled away, but made no indication she had heard him.

"I wasn't sure that that would work," she said, "but it looks like it did. Her heart restarted."

Damian, immediately ashamed of his inappropriate swell of jealousy, looked quickly away from Lian, and reached out fumbling fingers to feel Iris's wrist.

"Speedsters generally respond well to electric interference with their systems," she stated flatly. "I gave her everything I had. She's alive."

A silence.

"But we have to go, Damian."

He didn't look at her.

"They'll be here soon."

"I'm not leaving her."

"I know. I don't want to leave her either. You know I don't. But my father knows I'm here, and by now he probably knows you're here too. They're going to come get us. And now with…with this…"

Damian was shaking his head. "No," he said, a struggle in his voice, as if he could still hardly comprehend what was happening. "No, we didn't…this isn't…"

He let out a shuddering breath, pressing his palms to his eyes.

"He said it was her," he murmured. "He said it was her from the very beginning…"

"It isn't her," said Lian, more urgently now, reaching out to take hold of Damian's arm. "At least, not alone. But we can't stay here any longer, please, Damian, they'll take care of her when they get here, they'll know what to do better than we do, her parents will look after her-"

"Her parents," he whispered. "Her parents already have one child in critical condition, Lian, how could we-"

"We have to go, _now_."

He looked up at her. He met her dark eyes, wide, open and desperate. One of her hands was curled around his arm, and the other rested on Iris's shoulder, gentle and tender. Slowly, he began to nod. "I know," he said. "I know we have to go."

They were silent, unmoving for a moment, then Lian stood up, softly tugging Damian up with her as well. "She'll recover," she offered him, as a gesture of peace, or maybe of surrender. "You know she will."

He nodded. Slipping on his gloves again, he followed into the garage, into the jet which she fired up, sitting in the pilot's seat with an empty chair beside her as he knelt in the back of the plane for a few moments, still searching for breath. The lurching feeling in his stomach intensified as the jet took off, and he vomited again, silently grateful that Lian had chosen the group jet, which was large enough to warrant the inclusion of a small bathroom. After emptying his stomach, he stood in front of the small sink and splashed water across his face, flinching slightly as the cold water streamed down his face, washing away caked blood around his mouth. He filled his cupped hands with water and brought it to his lips, sucking the cold liquid into his mouth, feeling it drip down his ragged throat. Something felt strange, wrong. There was no mirror with which to check for injuries; he instead had to touch his face, run his fingers across his skin. Yes. His mask was still missing, no doubt lying in Jai's hospital room. He didn't realize how much he had depended on that familiar weight around his eyes, but now that he noticed its absence, he suddenly felt naked, vulnerable. It took him a long while to steel himself enough to return to the main cabin of the jet, to where Lian was guiding them to God knows where.

But he did return to her, and took the seat beside her, strapping himself in, examining the control panel before him. "Where are we headed?" he asked her, his voice completely level.

She was silent for a moment, then confessed, "I don't know exactly. We can't go back to the Tower. Or Star City. Or Gotham."

"What about the safehouse? In the mountains?"

She considered this, then nodded, inputting coordinates. "Your father doesn't know about that place, does he?"

"No. Only the team." He caught himself, and hesitated. "But if we're trying to…avoid the team-"

"We're not," said Lian stonily, matter-of-factly. "There's no one left to hide from."

"Iris knows the place. And she just…" He paused. He breathed, then he didn't. He said, "She just tried to kill me." When he said the words out loud, the truth became more real, somehow indescribably more tangible, and it sickened him deep in his stomach as he remembered, clearly, her weight on his body, her hand clutched around his heart.

"She'll be, at the very least, unconscious for a while," Lian replied, without looking at Damian. "Long enough to sort this out."

"Sort what out?" demanded Damian sharply, turning to her, eyes glinting in the artificial glow of the control panel. "Don't you get it, Lian? Don't you understand what's going on?"

"Of course I do," she replied scathingly, glancing at him disdainfully, before the question was even completely out of his mouth. "What Milagro did to Chris, what Maxine did to Jai, what Iris did to you. It's all part of a plan."

"A plan to destabilize us," continued Damian, the words rushing out of his mouth as though he could not control them. "A plan to tear us apart. An evil plan meant to assert dominance over-"

He broke off suddenly, staring up at her, gaping slightly. She glanced at him again. "What?" she asked, and she couldn't keep the panic out of her voice. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Me," he breathed. He wrenched his gaze away from the girl, clutching onto the arms of his seat tightly. "Lian. You shouldn't be alone with me."

A silence.

"I haven't…I haven't been wholly responsible for an attack yet. Yet."

"Damian, please," muttered Lian, without looking at him. "I could take you with my eyes closed."

"You say that, but we don't know for sure – you never sparred with me, I told Iris that would come back to hurt us, I told her, and now who knows if I'll attack you or not and you've never even fought me to anticipate what might – God _damn it_, so _petty_, just because you don't _like _me-"

At this, Lian actually looked over at him, irritation mixed with something like – resignation? – flashing across her face. "I don't not _like_ you," she said, and he looked at her, and she clarified quickly, "I don't – I don't _hate_ you, if that's what you…" She trailed off, knowing exactly what he meant.

There was silence. He peered out of the jet miserably. "Yes you do," he murmured.

"I don't."

"You hate me when I am with Iris."

And the silence somehow condensed, solidified into something tight and uncomfortable. Lian almost cleared her throat, awkwardly shifting slightly, and the reaction was almost comical, too exaggerated, too out-of-place in the dark jet.

"Don't make this about that, Damian," she said lowly. "It isn't. It's not."

Damian didn't reply right away.

Several minutes later, he looked towards her and asked, "You know who's orchestrating this, then?"

Lian nodded. "Everything became pretty clear, once I realized who was at the center of it all."

"Us. All of us."

Lian shook her head. "You."

Silence. The plane angled downwards slightly, beginning its descent into the gentle, sloping mountains. "It's a trap," began Damian cautiously, "meant for the whole team. To remind us that we're…to emphasize the lesson that we don't, in actuality, control any…" His voice trailed off, his argument falling apart in his head. His breathing, loud and irregular, hitched and his brow knit in confusion. "It doesn't…it doesn't make any sense."

Lian hesitated, glanced at him, and then began lowly, "I know what's going through your head right now. I know that you see it, you just don't want to face it. You don't want to admit it. Because you can demonize your father all you want, sure, because tomorrow, he'll be there to show you he's exactly the opposite of what you were afraid he might be. But if someone…if someone is so far away, and you haven't seen or heard from them in so long…I know what you want to believe, Damian. And I don't blame you."

She didn't look at him.

"But your mother is a villain," she said, with finality. "And this was all part of her plan. It's hard for you to admit, because this plan…it wasn't a sick plot to get you back to her. It wasn't some kind of persuasion, where she could come and try to seduce you into abandoning your cause, returning to her. This was a calculated, deliberate attack on those you love, the team you feel directly responsible for. This wasn't about getting you on her side. This was about hurting you."

Damian was shaking his head. "No," he said, but he didn't make a sound, only framed the word with his cold lips. "No," he said again, and this time he did make a sound. "No. No. Not my mother, not after…"

He spread his hands out in from of him, staring down at the colored gloves covering his skin. His vision swam slightly in the darkness of the jet, and his head began to pound, just as the jet hit ground, decelerated, as Lian brought it to a halt outside the safehouse in the wilderness. He didn't move as Lian unbuckled and stood up and opened the hatch, then pulled a firearm from her holster and shot the controls before her three times. Every light glowing in the jet blinked off. All power disappeared. Damian only looked up at her.

"There's a tracer buried somewhere in there," she explained, replacing her gun in the holster at her hip. "Even if I cloaked the jet, they'd be able to find us. It's connected to the ship's main system, though, so the only way to stop it from transmitting our location entirely is to cut all power, break the thing down. This should do for now."

She turned and disappeared out of the aircraft, heading for the entrance to the safehouse hidden in the brush.

Damian sat, for a moment, alone in the jet, staring at the bullet holes in the control panel. The sharp blast of a gun discharging rang in his head. He knew firearms. He had been trained by assassins under his mother's teaching, and again by his father, except no more live ammo, no more lethal shots, the sort of weapons that would do everything but maim and kill. The firearm in Lian's hands had not been one of these weapons.

Lian had shot three times, and Damian had seen the damned thing in her hand. She knew his weaponry training. She knew that he would recognize the gun, its make, its destructive, deadly power. She had shown it right to him, expected him to see it, and Damian stared at the shots in the controls of the jet and his blood ran suddenly icy cold.

Hundreds of miles away, a woman sat in a dim-lit hospital room, her hand holding that of a child's, a girl's. She leaned across the girl's body, putting a hand to her forehead, brushing the hair away from her skin, covered in a cold sweat. The girl's eyes darted rapidly underneath her eyelids. She could have been dreaming. Then, slowly, a noise came from the girl's throat, not a wheeze or an involuntary hacking cough but a quiet rumble, a conscious sound.

With a gasping breath, Sin opened her eyes.

The woman with her pulled her hands away slightly, hovering just above the girl's body, as if afraid to touch her, as if afraid that she would slip away. "Sin," whispered Dinah, tears in her eyes. "Sin, baby. You're okay. You're gonna be okay. Can you hear me?"

Sin looked at her, her eyelids heavy, but her eyes clear, alert. Her hand – the one without a cast still around the wrist – rose slightly, towards her face, and at the spluttering noises, Dinah reached up and pulled down the oxygen mask on the girl's face away from her mouth. "Can you hear me?" she asked again, brushing her fingers across Sin's cold skin.

She nodded, just barely, and then two words came tumbling out of her mouth, urgently: "_Big sister_."

"Yes," said Dinah, wiping a streaking tear from her own face. "Yes, I'm here, little sister."

Sin moved her head, almost imperceptibly, and said, "_No_. Big sister."

For a moment, Dinah looked down at the child, her mouth open, hope abruptly dissipating. "Honey," she said, leaning in close to the girl, desperately, "baby, I'm right here. Can you see me? Can you understand my words?"

"No," said Sin, and the shaking of her head became more pronounced now, and she said, "No. Not you. Big sister. My big sister."

She raised her coal-black, weary eyes to Dinah's, a glimmer of panic rising in them.

"_Lian_," she whispered.

By the time Damian had exited the plane as well and followed Lian into the underground bunker, the girl had the computers up and running, scanning through databases on her own. Outside, in the morning sky, a shooting star seemed to streak across the dim brightness, racing the sun across the horizon. Damian found himself limping slightly, a tightness in his chest that he couldn't shake restricting his breath, making it hard to inhale. He could hear a buzzing somewhere in the back of his head. His fingers wouldn't move right, weren't following the instructions sent from his brain. He blinked back his fatigue, and stood ten feet behind Lian, watching her.

"My father knows where she is," he said, quietly. "We could have gone to him."

Lian glanced back at him. "I don't think you really want to do that."

"No. Not after what he accused me of. Not after I ran from him."

Silence.

"But we could have. We could have gone to him and he would have already investigated the possibility, I'm sure. He would be ready to leave, to personally intercept her, within the hour."

"It's not an option."

"Why not? I'm not so proud that I would refuse his assistance. Not now. And I am his son. He would forgive me."

Her voice, too hard, too stinging, a whip in the night. "I said _no_."

Damian didn't reply to her immediately. He leaned against the wall, his feet feeling numb. "Why not?" he repeated, and there was less uncertainty in his voice this time.

Lian stopped working, and stood staring at the screen, her elbows locked, supporting herself on the control panel, her lithe form silhouetted perfectly by the artificial light of the computer. She sounded breathless as she spoke, as if murmuring a confession, a prayer. "Iris has marks from my arrows all over her. They'll think I attacked her. I'm not going to let them hold me as _they_ take care of the sick bitch who did this to us."

"She was attacking me," said Damian levelly, reasonably. "You were defending me. You saved my life. I'm a witness. I can confirm."

"They'll think we're both part of it."

"Lian," he said. "How did you hit Iris with that arrow?"

Utter silence.

Then the girl dropped her head, her hands balling into fists. "I knew she was unstable," she whispered. "She was a wreck, you saw her, she was a total wreck. A time bomb. I was sure something would happen eventually. I had a…contingency plan in place."

Damian didn't move.

She turned around to face him, her eyes wide and wet. "They both used to have powers, you know," she explained. "But the divided connection was killing them, tearing them apart. Iris streamlined it. But do you get it, Damian? Jai had that connection. He's always had it. Irey just redirected it."

Damian narrowed his eyes slightly. "What are you saying?"

"All those times she said she needed him," Lian continued, and her words sounded more like a challenge now, as if she was daring him to question her, "how _protective_ she was of him. It was because she knew. She always knew."

She paused. She looked at Damian, her eyes searching his.

"He _was_ her connection to the Speed Force," she murmured. "The only way to save you was to cut it off."

For a long moment, Damian watched her. And then he took a breath, his face hard and set in iron. There was no time for pain tonight. No time for mourning.

He said softly, "You killed Jai."

"I had to stop his heart," she answered, bowing her head slightly. "Just long enough to get you out of there."

"You deceive yourself. You didn't _stop his heart_. You killed him, Lian. You killed him and you didn't even have to decency to be there in _person_ when you did it."

Her eyes hardened. "You were raised an assassin, Damian," she said stonily. "Decency. Honor. You don't know the meaning of the word."

Silence.

She turned around, back to the computer. "I did what I had to," she said, and her voice was softer now, quieter. "I saved your life."

"I would have rather died."

"Would you have said that, when her hand was in your chest?"

He had no reply to this. He looked at the wall, at the dull, dark floor, at the computer screen before her, at the back of Lian's body, her head, black hair cropped short, combed into an ornate wave on the top of her head, her skin otherwise covered by her uniform, black and dark, deep crimson, her broad back tapering to her narrow waist, her strong legs ending in obsidian-black military-grade boots. But she was so small, compared to Damian, compared to Iris's height. She was small and she had always been quiet but aggressive, assertive, with narrowed eyes, master of the blank, unreadable expression under which she could hide anything. Anything. But she was no longer hiding. The truth had risen to the surface, and she was waiting, he could tell. She was just waiting for him to show her that he knew.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, leaning hard against the wall, and he began, "Just my mother, you say."

She didn't reply.

"No one else. No other leads."

Nothing. She didn't even turn around.

"Despite," he continued, "our primary suspect. You haven't even said his name."

She stopped manipulating the computer's controls.

Damian asked softly, "Why not Deathstroke, Lian?"

She returned to working on the computer. "What are you talking about?"

"You're diverting my attention. Leading me away from him."

"Why would I do that? He's been underground for too long, he's a dead end, that's why I dropped him as a suspect."

"Right," said Damian, and the numbness in his extremities was spreading, "he's been underground for years. Since your father's infiltration of his team. After your apparent death."

Lian stopped moving.

"You do realize I'm familiar with the essentials of that case. Even though you – simply, brilliantly, I should have seen right through it – even though _you _said you'd check your father's files, search for clues. We had no reason to suspect that you would want to hide something from that case."

She closed the files up on the computer, those of Damian's mother.

Damian said, almost gently, "I know that _your_ mother was involved, Lian."

Lian lifted her hands off the controls. Damian's stomach heaved, and he retched bile into his mouth, spitting the thin, sour liquid onto the bunker's floor.

"And I…_hh_…I know the...effects of hundreds of distinct poisons, Arsenal. And so I must ask you this."

His breathing ragged and difficult, he still stared straight at her.

"How did you get Cheshire's toxin into my system? When did you poison me? The effects…too rapid for anything longer than…than less than an hour, maybe, I…"

He trailed off, his vision noticeably blurring now. She moved just slightly, turning her head just enough so that he could see her right eye, and the hint of a satisfied smile on her face.

"The jet's water tank," she said softly. "I was hoping you'd be feeling vulnerable enough to want to wash the blood off your face." She paused, then let out a little muted chuckle, and turned fully around to face him, leaned back against the controls of the computer, took hold of the gun at her hip, held it up, balancing the weapon in her grip. "The concentration was fairly low. I expected it to weaken you, maybe, if any of the poison got into an exposed wound." The chuckle, this time, was more like a giggle, high and girlish, and as she laughed she covered her open mouth with her free hand. "But you _drank_ it, didn't you? You must have. It's working too beautifully. This is all too easy, Damian, you have to understand. This has _all _been _too_ easy."

A pause. And then she said, "It's been a pleasure, Robin," and she pointed the gun and a resounding _BLAM_ echoed in the darkness and then there was silence.


	12. Not yet

Chapter Twelve: Not yet

_"…I rose from a dream in which I came  
over a burning plain and entered a wood  
in which the corpses were tied up in trees_

_for the birds to clean. There I lay on a platform  
awaiting the sharp beaks of the carrion eaters  
for I understood my bones must be released  
and the moon passed over me and drew up my blood_

_ at mist and the sun passed over me and baked  
the last sweet water from my tissues.  
When the great crow landed on my face I cried  
Not yet, not yet, and the crow asked, Will you not_

_ give over? and I cried Not yet, not yet…  
_-Marge Piercy, from "The sun and the moon in the morning sky of Charlotte_"_

A deafening silence rang in the empty space. Lian didn't move. Damian was on the ground, his cape drawn over his body, his shoulders leaning against the wall, a crumpled tangle of long limbs and armored fabric. She didn't return the gun to her holster.

She called, "I can see you breathing. Amateur."

He let out a little grunt, groaning noise, and then swung his cape off of his body, glaring up at her. Without saying a word, he clutched to the wall beside him, pulling himself up to stand again, unsteady on his feet. There was a small _tink _as the bullet that had been stopped by his body armor fell to the ground and rolled away.

Breathing hard, his vision still blurred, he looked up at her with dark, hooded eyes and murmured, "Amateur? I'm not the one who used a single bullet on Batman's _son_." His chest rose and fell; he could feel the bruise already beginning to bloom on his ribcage, where the bullet had struck. "You didn't really expect that to work, did you?"

She was shaking her head even before he finished his question. She lowered her gun, laying it across the control panel of the computer as she leant back, still holding it tightly. "No," she said, watching him, her eyes smoky and dim. "I'm not done yet, Damian."

The boy only stared at her, leaning heavily against the wall. His stomach lurched again, but he swallowed the foul taste of bile rising in his throat. No weakness. Not in front of her. Not anymore.

A thousand miles away, a boy landed on the earth and took one step, only to be stopped by a man wearing a uniform. "Son," he said. "I'm sorry, but I need you to vacate the premises immediately. You have not been authorized to be here."

The boy looked at the man silently, his face pale, his eyes glowing slightly, fire burning bright behind them. "He's not your son," said a voice from above them, hovering just above the ground, his arms folded. "Now step aside."

The other man glanced at the boy before him, then the man in the sky. "She's been stripped of her duties," he said. "Honorably discharged, you could say."

"And yet," said the man in the sky, "the ring remains loyal to her. Doesn't it?"

The man in green did not reply.

"Step aside now, John," continued the man. "We're letting them go. We're letting them all go."

John Stewart looked up at the man, his jaw clenching slightly, then looked back behind him, at the house, the family, being held, for all intends and purposes, under house arrest. A curtain shifted slightly in a window, a wide-eyed dark face pressed against the glass.

He turned back. "I'm sorry," he repeated, "but I have to ask the two of you to leave. Immediately."

A hard, tense silence.

Damian was leaning up against the wall too much, and he knew that, but it was unavoidable; his body was failing him, floating away with the poison's kiss and now a dull, pulsing pain from his chest. A cough rose up from his lungs. He tried to keep it in his mouth, to keep himself from spitting blood at her feet, but the force of it wracked his entire body, and he had to compose himself again, collect himself, taste the coppery, thick liquid in his mouth and own the movement, assert his power over her, create and use her fear, and spit a mouthful of blood defiantly, his face contorted into a snarl.

She just watched him, the hint of a smile on her face. "You're finding it difficult to breathe."

"Yes, Lian, I am. You shot me."

"It's not the bullet. It's the toxin. You know what it does. It's shutting you down. You're already having difficulty seeing. Your mind is becoming cloudy, your breathing shallow. The numbness in your body is spreading even now, isn't it?"

"Please. I am immune to every toxin my father has on file."

"That's a highly specialized synthetic poison, Damian," she told him, fierce and harsh. "You _can't_ build an immunity to something like that."

"I carry – antidotes. With me. Everywhere."

She cocked her head slightly. "Really?" she asked. She straightened up, abandoning the gun on the computer controls, taking a step towards him. "Do you?" she asked, and she walked steadily up to Damian until she stood right before him, mimicking his movements, placing an arm on the wall beside her to steady herself. Her eyes were mere inches away from his. They did not look dark, or glassy, but bright and inquisitive, as if she were genuinely asking him a question she desired a satisfactory answer to.

"Yes," he spat.

She searched his eyes, her own flickering back and forth between each pupil. "Where?" she whispered, her mouth so close to his that he felt her hot breath on his face, could see the rings of black outlining her eyes, the shine of her painted lips in the dim light.

She suddenly dropped into a crouch, disappearing from his line of sight. "Here?" she whispered, her fingers shooting out to touch the belt around his waist, slowly crawling around the edged, tugging at it, pulling it away from his body.

His own hand shot out, clumsily grasped hers, and he muttered, "No, Lian. Stop, please stop. Stop."

She paused, looked up at him, then took one hand away, sliding a long hunting knife out of her thigh holster. In one swift movement, she cut the belt from his waist, let it drop into her hand. She closed her fingers around it, and then tilted her head up again, one hand still at his waist, grinning.

He jerked his leg upwards, his kneecap connecting solidly with her jaw, throwing her nearly across the room, his belt out of her hands, lying several feel away from her. Enough movement and feeling left for one maneuver, not strong enough to hit them both; panic rose in him for a moment but then she let out a tough grunting, sighing sound, pushed herself off of the ground and he made a decision and launched himself onto her, his knee, pounding from his earlier blow, pressed into her back, his hands encircling her wrists, keeping them at the floor.

"This isn't you, Lian," he said loudly, needles and pins prickling at his tongue and lips. "I know you, and this is _not_ you. Fight it. I know you're in there. Fight it, Lian."

A silence, and then she burst into violent sobs, pressing her face into the floor. "D-_Damian_," she cried. "I'm – it's so – it hurts, please help me please I'm hurting you I hurt them it's all my fault please, please! Please, help me!"

"Okay!" said Damian, his voice ringing above her cries, wary of her sudden change. "Okay, Lian, I'm going to help you. Tell me what's going on, first, and then I'll help you. Tell me what happened to you. Lian."

Tears pooled on the ground below her face, her face smudged black by her bleeding make-up. "Oh God Damian help me I hurt them I didn't mean to Damian please-"

"Lian! Lian, listen to me!" He lowered his head, his mouth by her ear: "Lian, you need to calm down and talk to-"

Her head wrenched back, colliding with his face, and the blow caused him to lift his weight just enough for her to slide out sideways from under him, tearing her wrists from his grip, and then she wrapped her leg around his neck and threw his body against the ground, spun and echoed his position above her, except she held both of his hands just between the glove and sleeve at the small of his back with one of her own, and with the other she took hold of his hair, grown out slightly longer because Iris loved his curls, and Lian tore his head back and smashed his face into the floor, once, twice, three times, then held him up tightly by his dark hair, blood dripping from his nose, oozing from his lips.

Her tears not yet dried, she hissed, "It's not nice to hit a _lady_."

Damian coughed, and thick, viscous blood was dispelled onto the floor. "My apologies," he panted. "I've always been under the impression you were merely a _bitch_."

Again, his face collided with the harsh, unforgiving floor, now warm with his blood.

Breathing heavily, almost choking again in the blood in his mouth, he murmured hoarsely, "I didn't mean that. I didn't mean that, Lian, I know this isn't you."

"_This is me!_" she screamed, and it echoed in the small safehouse. He could hear her breaths now, feel her body shaking against his. She stood up, for a moment paused with her feet on either side of his hips. "Don't patronize me, and don't insult yourself. You know exactly what I'm doing. And you know exactly why."

She stepped away from him, back to the control panel of the computer. She took her gun in both hands and, facing away from him, shot the computer twice in the monitor and three times in the controls.

"No power," she whispered, then raised her voice: "Just you and me, Damian. Left alone to take care of this one once and for all, all by ourselves."

Silence. Damian pushed himself up on the palms of his hands, blinking blood from his eyes.

"Collect yourself," she said loudly, her voice calm and in control, without turning to look around at him again.

And he pulled himself to his feet, refusing to use the wall to steady himself, swaying slightly. He looked up, cleared his airways, took slow, deep breaths. He closed his eyes and opened them, wiped blood from his face, and then answered: "Collected."

"Good," she purred. "Good."

She turned around to face him again, the gun still in her hand. She sat menacingly leaned against the busted control panel, gently holding the firearm, almost as if caressing the cold metal.

"Tell me," she said, her voice soft again, cocking her head, her eyes wide, looking innocent and vulnerable there, with black make-up from her eyes stained down her cheeks. "Did you only understand just now?"

He met her gaze, and could not keep the threat out of them. "I should have realized much sooner," he replied. "You left…hints. Clues. You were dying to be caught, Lian. You were sloppy."

"I was _meticulous_," she corrected him. "I left everything that I could out there, for you to see. I was careful. My hints were vague, but you're right, they were hints." She leaned back, batted her eyelashes at him. "You're the detective," she said, her voice high and girlish. "What happened?"

"I was blind."

She smiled at him, sickly sweet. "Clearly," she said. "I gave you so much, Damian. Please tell me you saw _some _of it."

He said nothing.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "Tell me," she said quietly, her thumb slowly rubbing back and forth against the barrel of the gun, "what you saw."

His gaze turned stony. He didn't move.

And then he spoke.

"Your father," he began. "Outside of Jai's hospital room. Iris's parents were speaking to a doctor and would not have left the room unguarded. Your father was unconscious, s- sleeping, it seemed. He wouldn't. Not after what happened to Jai, and certainly not after what he did to – to Maxine."

"Did you see her?" asked Lian, her eyes glinting, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. "Did you go to see her, that tiny body in that hospital bed, wounded, tranquilized? They're keeping her down because her body can process that kind of medication at any metabolic speed in the animal kingdom, but she's unconscious and when she's unconscious we all know she comes right back to human, and a little girl her size can't handle those drugs in her body, Damian. Her body shuts down."

"Slade," continued Damian, through gritted teeth. "You were the one who tipped us off that they suspected him in the first place. That should have been enough for me, I should have done my research, but I trusted you, I trusted your judgment and you pretended to review that case and I took your word for it. We spoke about it. I saw the file for that case ten times after that and I never once opened it. I never once suspected. Not once."

"Until."

"Until I came here with you, and…and Deathstroke was no longer involved."

"Right."

"Until you sat there and pulled apart my delusions, my irrational fears, and confirmed the truth I'd been avoiding: _my _mother. My blood. I'd known from the start she was a suspect. Everything lined up. I would've gotten there. Eventually."

She nodded, a look of pretend pain on her face, and admitted, "I thought I was laying it on a little too thickly. I should have waited until after I showed you the gun."

"There's more."

"I would hope so," she said reasonably. "You haven't gotten to the best parts yet."

He watched her, a note of tiredness, exhaustion in his eye, in the very way his body moved. "_You _attacked Sin."

"Too easy."

"The way she was torn apart like that. We thought it had to be a heavy hitter, someone strong enough to pose a significant threat to someone with her skills. But it was simpler than that. It was just you. Just someone she trusted completely."

"I think," she said icily, her cute, childish demeanor dropping, "that I did pose _quite _the significant threat, don't you agree? I put her in the hospital. She's comatose."

"She's healing," said Damian, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. "And once she can, she'll let…" he hesitated to breath, his throat constricting slowly, "…let everyone know who did this to her. There's no way out. Looks like mommy didn't plan an escape route."

"Oh, believe me," she said, so quietly that Damian could hardly hear, "I have something in mind."

She said nothing. Neither did he.

Then she continued, "Go on. You're so close to the finish line. Give me one more leap, little buddy. The key you've had all along. Your one big clue."

"This was…fairly dubious," answered Damian, as soon as the words had left her lips. "The connection rather loose, even for you. You drugged me into carving a message into my own flesh. Bagheera. The cat. The cat black as night, who fades into the jungle. As if invisible." He stared at her, then shook his head slightly, glancing down at the floor. "The cat from the storybook who…disappears."

A wide smile appeared on her face. She chuckled. "That was too obvious," she sighed. "But it was entertaining to watch you struggle."

"The one thing," breathed Damian, his chest rising and falling painfully now, his fingers numb, doing his best to stay standing on feet he couldn't feel, "the one thing that I don't…understand…is how… is that you needed Iris. You needed her to…to dose us, that is. Undetectably. To get the toxin, Slade's toxin, into us and then…" he looked at her with hard eyes, "…and then out of us again. Milagro. Why her...tox screen was clean. Iris has done it to me before, she speeds up your body's natural processes, she, she increases your metabolism, she…"

She watched him. He shook his head slightly, clearing his thoughts.

"How did you control her?" he asked bluntly, his lips losing feeling. "Your drug…it wouldn't…not with her…"

Lian shrugged. "Mind control was easiest. There are means other than injections, you know." She paused, reached a hand to her face and, with the inside of her wrist, wiped away the streaked eye make-up from her cheeks. "I set up a psychic trigger. Easiest thing in the world, when your target trusts you explicitly. I'm not so conceited that I won't confess to having help, though. Thank you, Damian. You performed beautifully."

His chest heaved. He felt his knees shake, and he relented, finding the wall again, leaning against it; one knee sunk to the ground, and his arm pressed hard against the steady wall. "T…trigger?"

"One word," she continued, nodding, her words far too nonchalant, too casual. "Special enough that it won't come up in conversation. Meaningful enough that you'd say it eventually, but alone, with no witnesses, and even more so in times of stress or duress. You say it, trigger the next step in the plan, and keep everything moving straight ahead, smooth as silk, precise as clockwork."

He stared at her, taking tremendous effort to keep his neck turned to watch her. "How many…how many times has she…"

"You're not integral," she answered, almost disdainfully. "Twice, maybe. You started this in the first place, and you kept things running." A pause. She was waiting for him. "That night you spent with her," she continued. "She was so transparent about it, you have to know. When I found out what you two were planning, of course I had to take advantage of that. Of course."

This time the silence stung Damian and he hung his head, unable to look up anymore, relying solely on the wall to keep himself up.

Lian said, "I can't completely say what happened this last time. In the hospital room. Her brother's state had something to do with it, I'm sure. He has been a thorn in my side for all this time. He monitors her too closely. Her speed has been affected by the psychic block, part of her mind locked away. He was beginning to notice. I had to accelerate my plan. This was a poor decision. She became unusable too quickly, and I was forced to liquidate a valuable asset. That much is your fault, Damian. What you said to her. In her brother's hospital room. It set her off. A trigger I was no longer in control of."

Damian's eyes were closed, palms pressed against the cool wall, his brain sluggish, trying to connect all the points. Started this - before the first attack: the night in the Tower with Iris, which he had been torn away from, the emergency in Gotham. Then the night he spent with her, in the penthouse, when she was supposed to be spending the night with Lian at the Tower, the night of Chris's attack. And then again, in Jai's hospital room, what had he said, what had he said. The conversation replayed in his mind in slow motion.

"_Tell me_," he'd said, "_you know how I feel_."

"_I know_."

"_I love you_."

"_I know_."

"_You are_," he had said, a whisper, his lips against her forehead, "_…my beloved_."

An electrifying sick realization shot through him, sending sensation and energy rattling through his body.

"_Stay safe_." "_For you, beloved_."

_A kiss, deep and tender. "Goodbye, beloved_."

He hacked dryly, the blood in his mouth unable to wet his breath. He turned to face Lian, burning in rage, dragging himself up onto two feet again.

"How dare you," he whispered. "How dare you – how dare you _pervert_ – you can't – how _DARE you!_" he bellowed, furious. "What have I done to you?" he shouted, screaming in the empty room. "What have I done to _you?_ Why are you _doing this? How could you do this to her?_"

"You _fool_." She was standing again, her body tense, packing her gun back into its holster unceremoniously, her face twisted into a sneer. "My mother explained it all to me, you know. What I could do. What I could be. The things that all of _you _have done, the hurt my father and the others have caused." Tears shone in her eyes, real sincere tears of devotion, love. "The way they tore me away from _her_."

He stared at her. "Lian…"

"You wouldn't understand!" she shrieked. "You don't love your mother anymore! You don't give a damn about _your _mother, you don't care at all, but I understand loyalty and mine has given me no limitations, do you understand, Damian? She has done _nothing _but open doors for me. Isn't that what a mother is supposed to be for her child? A guide? A means for their ends?"

Her words were obscured by hacking coughs from Damian, and then he almost collapsed but clutched onto the wall for support and he said, "No, Lian, no, this is not you, it has never been you _she's drugging you_, you have that poison in your veins, you must, I know you, I know that you care about us, you care about all of us, even when you hate me." He looked up at her, eyes wide but lids falling, images going blurry in the darkness before him. "Think of Iris, remember her - you killed her, you killed her and Jai, you stopped their hearts Lian and you love her, I _know_ you love her-"

A hard palm colliding with the side of his face. He hadn't seen her approach him through the haze building behind his eyes. He could hear the tears in her voice.

"_I. Don't. Love. Any of them_."

"Think of her," he breathed. "Think of her, Lian, you can break this, don't let your mother manipulate you like this, you owe her nothing do you hear me you owe her _nothing I know Lian, I know_-_"_

Another blow, harder now. He was knocked off his bended knee and onto the ground, where he lay, unable to move. "Shut up!" she screeched at his prone body. "You shut your dirty, disloyal mouth! You don't know anything! Haven't you been listening! It's not my mother doing this, Damian, it's not _her!_ It's _me! It's me!_"

"No!" shouted Damian. "Think of Iris! She loves you, I know she loves you too I swear to God, Lian she told me, she loves, she loves-"

She knelt above his body, took hold of his collar and threw her fist into his face again, again, again, punctuating each blow with a word uttered through gritted teeth, "This," _thud_, "is," _thud_, "not," _thud_, "about," _thud_, "_her_."

Slurred speech: "You _love_ her-"

"I don't love her!" she screamed. "I don't love you, I don't love anyone! Not my father not even my mother _I DON'T NEED HER! I DON'T NEED ANYONE!_"

She hit him again, then dropped him to the floor. She stood up, her chest heaving. She swept her hair back with a bloody hand, streaking scarlet red across the bangs on her forehead, one hand at her waist, out of breath.

With her heel, she nudged at Damian's body until he rolled onto his stomach, his cheek pressed against the ground, his face pointing out at her. She stomped once on his jaw by his ear, and then let out a deep breath and once again pulled the gun from her belt. She held it out with one hand pointed at Damian's head.

His eyes closed, bleeding and bruising and more than half unconscious, Damian muttered, "L…Lian." He forced one eye open, to look up at her. Slowly, deliberately, speaking as clearly as his broken mouth would allow, he told her, "You can't kill me."

She held out her gun, her eyes wild, and nodded and said, "Yes. I can. We've all been killing each other, Damian. Don't you get it? Don't you see the _brilliant _plan behind all of this? We've been killing each other for weeks now but we're just kids, Damian. We're just innocent little kids so we're not responsible, we had to have been drugged, we had to have been, even when there is no evidence to remotely suggest that fact. We can change. We can be reformed. You were."

Unlike any physical wound that pulsed, throbbed in his body – unlike any accusation, any shame that she had ever laid on him – this broke him. His eyes fell closed completely. Silently, he found himself repeating a prayer in Arabic, his mother's language, the language in which he no longer allowed himself to think, and the warm liquid pooling in the corners of his eyes melted down his face, washed clean streaks free of blood down his skin.

Quietly, Lian told him, "So now I am going to shoot you in the back, and it is going to hurt for a long time but then you are going to die right here, while I can see you and feel your pulse and rip open your chest and check your heartbeat, if need be, so you can't fool me. And when they come I will be weeping and crying and holding your long-cold corpse, and, Damian," her eyes glinted, "_I _will become the victim, and _you _will become the casualty."

Silence.

She knelt down, brushed her fingers through his hair, gently took hold of his cape and moved it off of his body, to ensure a clear, straight shot at his back.

"Goodbye, Damian," she said gently, and she raised the gun and there was a deafening sound of concrete and steel exploding, the screaming sound of solid being torn apart by impossibly high heat, a sound like the rumbling howl of some wild animal, shine of green and the gun discharged and the barrel smoked but Damian's body didn't move, didn't even slightly jump with the impact of the bullet on his spine because there it was _there it was_ suspended in midair, the smooth metal bullet, held between two fingers by a girl in a bright costume with long, red hair.

Iris looked at the bullet in her hand then, painfully out of breath, looked up at Lian's face, wide eyes, thin lips.

She dropped the bullet onto Damian's back and reached out to take hold of Lian's wrists and she leaned in close to her, almost as if for a kiss and then her eyes went hard and her grip tightened on Lian's skin.

And she hissed, "Titans – _Together_, Lian." and she twisted hard and electricity roared through her and Lian's eyes rolled back into her head and she crumpled, collapsed, but Iris caught her, grimly, before she fell across Damian and pulled her away from him, slowly lowered her to the ground beside him, and she sunk down between them, her legs giving way, one shaking hand resting on each of their heads.


	13. Be forgiven

Chapter Thirteen: Be forgiven

_"Change and be forgiven! the roots of the forest  
muttered but you tramped through guilty  
unable to take forgiveness neither do you  
give mercy_

_She is asleep now dangerous her mind  
slits the air like silk travels faster than sound  
like scissors flung into the next century_

_Even as you watch for the trout's hooked stagger_

_cross the lake the crack of light and the crumpling bear  
her mind was on them first_

_ when forgiveness ends  
her love means danger"_

-Adrienne Rich, "Upcountry"

Iris sat there, exhausted, touching both Lian and Damian as the rest of her team moved around her in chaotic disorder, wildly terrified and pumped full of adrenaline. A girl glowed green beside her – Sin, surrounded in a supported green-construct suit, still hardly recovered. She knelt at Lian's head, brushing her fingers against Iris's, then reached out to hold the other girl's arm. A male voice was shouting, deep and authoritative, in a way none of them had ever heard.

"Are they all right? Iris, are they alive? Is he breathing? Milagro, scan them, let us know what's wrong, Maxy, get the medical box from the jet, go, go, go! Iris, are they alive? Are they alive?"

"Yes," she said, her voice unshaking. She let go of Lian and moved to put her fingers at Damian's neck, her hands at his chest, then turned him on his side, arm under his head, holding him there. "He's breathing but unresponsive, I can't tell if it's due to blood loss or head trauma or-"

"Sin, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to let you down for a second in order to-"

"-oh, God, look at him, look at his face. Christ, look at him, she took him apart-"

"Do it, Milly, now."

"_…Iris…_"

"And Lian?"

"Only unconscious, but not for long. Milly, I need you to scan for internal injury as well, and bullet wounds, I don't see any, I think all this blood is just from his face but I'm not sure-"

"I know, Iris, I'm on it-"

"I've got the first aid kits," said Maxine, breathlessly, setting them down, opening them.

"Lian's got a face injury," called Sin, pressing against the girl's face with gentle fingers. "Dislocated jaw – no, I think bruised. There's blood in her mouth."

"_Iris_."

"There's something in him," said Milagro, squinting down at his body. "Something I don't recognize. Neurotoxin, it looks like."

Suddenly, Iris shushed them all loudly, her eyes wide. "He's talking!" she announced to them all. "Quiet, he's saying something!" She leaned down towards his face. "…Damian?" she asked, her heartbreak clear in her voice. "Dami? Baby, can you hear me?"

A quiet gurgling in the back of his throat. "Ch…Chesh…"

"We know," said Iris, nodding, her hand flickering up to his face, hovering above his blood-soaked skin. "We know, Sin explained everything."

He coughed. Blood spilled onto the ground, staining Iris's uniform.

"Maxy," said Iris decisively, "water."

Maxine handed her a tall bottle of water and a small towel, and Iris sprayed water across his face, wiped the blood away from his eyes and nose, and then placed it into the corner of his mouth; watered down, the blood dribbled from his mouth a dark pink color. He coughed again, but this time it wasn't a drowning cough, but more like a wheeze as his airways cleared slightly.

"She…" he trailed off, his eyes fluttering closed.

Milagro hung above the rest of the team, still scanning the bodies. "I don't know what to do here," she said, distressed. "We've got to call it in, we can't handle this-"

"_No_," said Chris.

"He might be _dying_, Chris!" shouted Milagro, her eyes glowing green. "There's something in him and it's poisoning his system and I have _no idea_ what to do!"

"B…belt…"

They all looked at Damian. Then Iris looked up, looking around wildly. "Here!" said Maxine, spotting the bright yellow of Robin's utility belt, no longer attached in a full loop. Returning to Damian's side, she laid it out before him, opening all of the compartments.

"Anti…antidote…"

"Where?" asked Iris urgently, leaning in.

He raised his hand, his fingers crawling the space of a few inches across the floor. "H…" he placed his hand above a small compartment, one containing several tiny syringes. "Here."

"Which one?" asked Maxine, her tiny fingers darting into the belt, pulling each of them out one by one. "This one?" He shook his head. "This?" Another shake of the head. "This?" His arm twitched slightly, all the movement he could muster, and Iris took it right out of the girl's hands and plunged it into Damian's neck, emptying the restorative liquid into his body.

He made another little gurgling noise, and then was still.

There was a single moment of silence. It seemed to last for lifetimes.

And then Iris said, "Milagro. You are not calling any of them."

"Irey, _please_-"

"No!" she said, her voice rough, aggressive. "Look at him. Look at what she did to him."

Sin looked up from Lian's prone body, her eyes wide. "You're protecting her?"

"I'm protecting _us_," she replied harshly. "We've only just ended one fight, I am not about to invite another."

"They won't _fight_ us-"

"You're right," said Iris sharply. "They'll annihilate us. They'll lock us down. After what we've done, after what…after…"

She closed her eyes, pressed her hand against her face, then looked around at them again, her gaze hard and steely.

"Chris," she said, without looking at him. "Get rid of the gun."

The gun lay in Lian's hand still. The other girls had been doing their best to ignore it, to pretend it wasn't there. "What?" asked Maxine.

Chris only looked at Iris. "That won't change anything."

"Yes," she replied, "it will."

"They'll still know."

"If we clean Damian up, it'll look like they fought hand-to-hand. Nobody will be able to tell who was attacking and who was defending."

"He's torn to pieces, Iris, I think it's pretty obvious-"

"So we break her nose!" said Iris loudly, drowning out the protests. "So we cut her up a little bit! They'll think – they won't _know_, they won't know she was behind it all! We _can't_ let them know, we _can't _abandon her like that-"

"Iris," said Milagro, lowering to the ground, forcefully taking ahold of the girl's forearms, peering into her eyes. "She tried to _kill _him. She tried to kill _all _of us."

"It wasn't her!" replied Iris, wrenching her arms from Milagro's grip. "Check her. Scan her right now, check her blood. It's not her. She wouldn't do this, she's being controlled, like all of us were!"

Milagro only stared into Iris's eyes for a moment, scrutinizing her, hunting for something there, and then she stood, held out her ring, and floated slightly off the ground, scanning Lian's body. The silence returned, wholly, completely, until the Green Lantern spoke again. "Yes," she said, unable to keep relief out of her voice. "Yeah, there's something in her." Maxine exhaled, as if she had been holding her breath. "A mind-controlling agent." She paused. "The ring says…it says it's…just mild."

Iris clenched her jaw, but looked back to Damian. Maxine looked at her, a question pooling in her eyes. "Are you going to just leave her? Can't you use your powers, get that out of her?

"No," breathed Iris. "I can't."

"You mean you won't," said Chris stonily. "You need that as proof that she wasn't in control of her actions."

"I _can't_," repeated Iris, glancing up at him. "My powers are…I don't know what I have or what I don't anymore. I don't know what I can do. I just know that I'm…that something is…"

Another cough from Damian. His whole body shuddered, and then his eyes fluttered open and he rasped, "It's not…not over…"

They all looked down at him. His eyes, still bleary, met their gazes, searched the room for them all.

"The fight," he echoed. "It's…not over."

Iris's heart froze. "Why?" she asked, horrified. "What have we missed?"

"_Cheshire_," he insisted, and he pulled his hands in, tried to prop himself up, but feeling had still not fully returned to his limbs, and he fell hard back onto the floor, knocking his jaw, wincing in pain; Iris reached out to him, to pull him onto her lap, but his arms shot out, batting her touch away numbly, refusing help. "Wasting time," he panted, lying at an awkward angle against the ground, looking pathetically helpless. "Cheshire is somewhere out there…if we're going to end this we need to…_we have to find her_."

"Where?" asked Maxine instantly. "Where can we find her?"

Damian's eyes flickered to the young girl. "In the country…close enough for Lian to…to communicate with her…"

Chris was looking out already, his eyes narrowed, searching around them. Milagro was constructing a map of the area in green, spreading it out above them, instructing her ring.

"Too slow," moaned Damian. "We have to…my father, he can find her. He can do anything, he can find her."

"_No_. We are _not _going back to them. We've come too far on our own, we've done _too _much."

"What did you do," he whimpered, suddenly vulnerable, weak. "What did you _do_…"

"Wait."

Iris turned to look back at Sin, who was still holding Lian's head, the expression on her face a mix of inexplicable confusion and dawning realization.

"Wait," she repeated, and Milagro paused her search, "I know where she is."

Chris broke his gaze as well, looking down at her. Damian's eyes found her small, still injured body, his mouth hanging open so he could breath, blood mixed with saliva still draining from his mouth.

"Star City," said Sin. "She's in Star City."

Iris was shaking her head. "No," she said. "No, Sin, she's smarter than that-"

"_Yes_," she stressed, nodding. "A while ago, before this all, before Lian attacked me, there was…there was a police report of something in a cemetery, it was a, a, what's it called, something wrong in the peace-"

"Disturbance?"

"Yes, disturbance, in the cemetery. Things broke, some graves de- def-"

"Defiled."

"Yes. Lian's father was to look into it, but she told him that she and me could do it. He let us. He trusts her."

"Did you go?" asked Chris tensely. "Did you two find something?"

"No," replied Sin, "the night we were supposed to go was the night of my attack."

"I don't get it," said Maxine, staring at Sin. "Why would Cheshire be there?"

Sin looked up at them, her eyes wide. "Morningstar Cemetery…" she uttered, "…where Lian was buried."

"Where Lian was buried?" asked Chris, skeptical. "What are you talking about? Lian never died."

Iris stared at Sin. "Yes," she said faintly. "She did. Or her mother…her mother thought she did." She turned back to the boy on the floor. "Damian," she said. "Does that-"

"Yes," he gasped, nodding his head as best he could. "_Go_."

"Come on," called Iris, getting to her feet. "Chris, take Lian. Milagro, Sin and Damian." Chris swept Lian into his arms and left through the hole they had torn in the side of the safehouse, returning to a jet, the largest of the Teen Titans's planes. "Sin, you need to stay with the two of them in the infirmary. We're going to keep Lian unconscious for now, okay? If she shows any sign of waking up, dose her." Sin nodded, and Milagro constructed the protective suit again for Sin, and raised Damian onto a glowing green stretcher, taking them out as well. "Maxy," continued Iris breathlessly, turning to the final member of the team. "Stay with Sin. She's not strong enough to take either of them if they fully wake up."

"Why would Damian-"

"I need you to keep him unconscious for me, as well. He needs to allow his body to heal and if he's awake he's not doing that. Okay?"

Maxine looked at her, worry in her eyes for a moment, and then nodded resolutely. "Okay," she said. "I can do that."

They boarded the jet, and Maxine disappeared, joining Sin, Lian and Damian in the infirmary. Iris slid into the controls beside Milagro. "How fast can this thing go?" asked Iris. "Chris, maybe you could fly ahead, in case she knows we're coming."

Neither Milagro nor Chris said anything for half a moment, meeting each other's gaze. Iris refused to look at them. "I could probably get there faster," he replied cautiously. "Do you…you're faster than me…"

She blinked, too quickly, still gazing out and away from them. "No," she said simply. "Not anymore. Go."

He exchanged a glance with Milagro for one more moment, then disappeared, leaving them alone in the jet to start the engines.

Star City was not extraordinarily far away. The ride was mostly in silence.

Then Milagro asked, "What's our plan when we get there? Run in guns blazing, hope she's alone?"

Iris nodded. "Pretty much."

If Milagro had a protest to that, she kept quiet, unable to say more, to disrupt Iris's glossy, determined shell.

A few moments later, the comms lit up. "She's not here," came Chris's voice.

"What?" asked Iris, eyes flashing. "What do you mean she's not there?"

"I mean," Chris replied, "there's nobody here. It's an underground facility, there's a mausoleum you can enter through to the north of the cemetery, the place seems to center around what looks to be an empty grave. It's nothing fancy. I thought Cheshire was supposed to be some sort of high-end superassassin."

"Oxy-moron," said Iris firmly. "With a job like hers, you forfeit the fancy hide-outs. You scrounge in the dirt for whatever you can get, like a bug, like rats."

The danger, anger in her voice was too strong, frightening, even to Milagro. "Fine," said the Green Lantern. "Okay. She's not there. If Superboy can't find her, I know none of us can. Let's get Lian and Damian some medical attention, okay? Now."

Iris didn't waver, only continued to pilot the jet. "Chris," she said.

"Iris…I have to agree with Milly. We got that antidote to Damian but he can still barely-"

"Are there supplies left?"

He hesitated, taken aback by the question. "What? What kind of supplies? I mean – yes. Yes, there are definitely things she left behind."

"What?"

"Um…more of the drug, by the look of it. The one she's been dosing us with. And your average other stuff. Nothing extraordinary. It looks like she cleared out in a hurry."

Silence. And then Iris said, "We're still coming."

"What?" asked Milagro, alarmed. "Why? There's absolutely no reason. Damian may be in serious danger, I'm not going to let another-"

"We're going," said Iris, with a hard finality. "We'll find something we need. I know."

It was still daylight when they landed, well outside the city; only Iris disembarked, and it took her several minutes to run to the graveyard. She tried not to think about her speed, about the sluggishness in her limbs, the loss of precision she found in her body.

Chris was waiting for her, as he had said, underground, through the mausoleum. A small dirt compound. Desk, seat, computer with a bullet in it. Abandoned weapons, and in one corner, vials of liquid, to be loaded into a syringe. Iris approached them carefully. "Is this it?" she asked. "This is the drug?"

"Yeah," said Chris. He reached out and took two larger vials. "This is her poison, though." He dropped the vials on the ground, crushed them underfoot.

Iris nodded, inspecting the remaining glass vials, taking several out. There was a silence.

And then, Chris said, "Iris."

She didn't look around.

"Irey. Look. We didn't have a lot of time before, but there's really nothing more we can do now." He paused. "So…talk to me. Your brother is in critical condition. _You _were in the hospital, completely immobilized just a few hours ago, and now you're…you're _broken_. Your speed, it's half what you're capable of, maybe less. Damian and Lian are fine. They're gonna be okay. But you?"

She stepped away from the vials, turning towards the ladder with which to exit.

"Are you okay, Iris?"

She stopped.

She glanced back at him tiredly. "I'll survive, Chris," she assured him, a small, weak smile making its way onto her face. "I think, in present circumstances…that's really the best you could ask from any of us."

She heaved herself up the ladder, and was gone, on her way back to the jet.

Once in, Milagro asked, "So? Where to now?"

Iris was silent for a moment, then finally bowed her head in consent. "You're right," she said. "They need a hospital. Let's take them back."

Milagro all but let out a sigh of relief. Silently, Iris stood and vacated her seat, heading back towards the infirmary. Chris said nothing, simply let her leave, filling in the space she left. Milagro glanced after her. "Is she-"

"Just let her go," said Chris gently. "She probably needs them more than she needs us right now. You know how much she loves them."

Sin and Maxine joined them a few moments later, Iris having asked for a moment alone with Damian and Lian.

She sat there, between their bodies on infirmary beds, listening to Lian's smooth inhalations and Damian's rattling breaths, and she put a hand over her mouth and didn't speak. And then she stood and she took something out of her belt, and loaded it into a syringe, sucking the liquid from a small vial. She tapped it twice and then took Lian's arm, found a vein in her elbow, and inserted the needle into her skin.

She discarded the syringe and took a new one, tapped it again, and turned to Damian, slipping off his glove, taking his hand and searching for a vein.

Violently, her hand was batted away from him as his arm shot up, swiping at her fiercely. She looked up at his face, his almost-open eyes, trying to mask the guilt in her own.

Exhausted, he muttered, "Please don't."

"I'm not trying to control you," she replied lowly, steadily. "I'm trying to protect you."

"I don't want to play any more games, Iris. I don't want to solve any more puzzles. Please. Don't incriminate yourself."

"I'm not," she said resolutely. "You don't understand."

"What don't I understand?"

"What happened to…to me. When I attacked you. You left me there on the beach, barely alive, your fingerprints, your DNA all over me."

"I didn't do that. You did."

"I know. I know, but they think you did, and they won't listen to me, Damian. They know how I feel about you. They know that I will do anything to protect you."

He stared at her. "Including drugging me with the very poison that caused this disaster."

She didn't answer.

"I can understand for Lian," he continued. "I would have done the same to her."

"Really."

"Yes. We need incontrovertible proof that she was not acting under her own devices. She is not responsible for what has happened."

Iris looked at him, to Lian, then back to him again. "You mean that?" she asked him weakly. "After all she did to you? After what she did to all of us?"

He closed his eyes. "She was taken advantage of," he murmured. "They need to know that."

Silence. "And you?"

He didn't reply immediately. And then, "I understand where you're coming from. I do. But my father took my blood last night. Right before I left to see you, in fact. If the drug – or even a higher dose – appeared in my blood now, he'd suspect something was amiss. I won't have him questioning Lian's loyalties."

Iris's knees were weak. She laid aside the syringe, carefully wrapping it to dispose later. Then she took a seat again, beside Damian's bed, and she reached out and took his hand and held it tightly. "Damian," she whispered. "I love you."

Nothing. No movement, no reply, nothing.

And then Damian coldly slid his hand away and said, "Iris. Don't."

She could not move for a moment, and then she took her hand away as well. "Damian," she said, repeating his name, a soft caress breaking in her mouth. "It's over. Don't do this."

"Leave," he said, bluntly, his eyes closed.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I've been treating you and for what I did to you. But I wasn't in control of that. I wasn't in control of myself."

"Yes," he said. "You were."

"No. I would never hurt you. Never."

There was a silence. He said nothing. And then, lowly, he began, "She implanted…a psychic trigger, in your mind. She said it was affecting your speed…like a part of your mind was locked away."

He opened his eyes finally, found her face, forced her to meet his gaze.

"Everything you said about her," he whispered. "How much you…love her. Tell me it was her presence in your mind. Tell me you didn't mean it. Tell me it was her exploiting my weakness, tearing us apart."

He watched her, his eyes tired, heavily lidded.

He breathed, "Tell me you don't love her."

She could only stare at him, her own eyes open and hurt. "It's more than…"

"Walk away from her," he urged, his voice lower but more aggressive now. "Just walk away. Walk away from her, for good, and I will forgive you, and I will forget about all of this."

Her mouth fell slightly open, still gazing into his eyes. She tore her eyes away, looking around the room desperately, and then back to him. "You can't be serious," she said. "You're still suffering some trauma, in a few days you'll be back to normal."

"Iris."

"You wouldn't askthis of me," she said, her voice hard, sharp. "She is my closest friend. You don't want to make me choose."

"Yes!" he breathed, loudly, urgently. "I do! I _need _you to choose, or I'll lose you. I'll lose everything."

She shook her head, refusing to look at him. "I'm not _yours_, Damian. I don't want to be that. I never wanted to be your _everyth_-"

She broke off, the words feeling too familiar. Too close. She put a hand to her forehead, self-consciously swept her hair out of her face.

"You need to rest," she mumbled.

He said nothing. His eyes tore away from her face, and he looked up at the cold metal ceiling of the infirmary, still and silent.

"We're okay now," she said carefully. "That's what's important. All of us are okay. We're going to be safe, now."

He didn't move. She reached out as if to take hold of his arm, her hand sliding just above his body, and then she pulled away. He closed his eyes. She watched him. Then she left, returning to the others, leaving Damian alone with Lian beside him, unconscious.

They returned to the hospital where Jai was being held; a team of doctors and nurses rushed out to meet them, eyes wide, and Chris carried Lian and Damian both gently onto stretchers, began to instruct a locked ward for the both of them, but Iris reached out and brushed her fingers against him gently, and he silenced himself. But then her legs gave way, and Milagro steadied her after helping Sin and Maxy into wheelchairs provided by the staff. They followed their injured teammates, ushered into a private waiting room, a call sent out, the hospital's policy with underage capes.

And then, through all the chaos, a shrill, "Oh my God! _Iris!_ Oh, God! Iris!"

Linda Park came crashing onto the room, threw her arms around her daughter, holding her tightly. "Iris," she cried, clutching her to her chest. "Iris, are you all right? Was that – was that Lian and Damian? Why are you-" she looked around, saw Milagro, a flash of fear in her eyes, "-what _happened?_ How could you _leave_ like that? Everyone is – your father – no one knows what's going on, I-"

"Mom," she said tiredly, pulling away from her mother. "There are coordinates in the jet. We need you to send the League there. We think-"

"_What _League?" demanded Linda. "Wonder Woman _just _found Superman, and Green Lantern is hardly conscious again, and-" she turned to Milagro, her fear gone now, "-and _your _brother is being questioned by the rest of the Lanterns and you know how much they don't like him and _your _father's been looking for you but not before he _screamed _at Red Arrow and – and-" Furiously, she turned to Chris and Milagro, "-and I heard you _attacked _Black Canary and _nobody's_ heard _anything _from Batman!"

"We had to!" said Chris loudly. "Sin knew exactly what was going on, and Black Canary would _not _have let her-"

"What's _happening?_" begged Linda desperately. "Why are you _doing _this?"

"We're not!" said Milagro, defensively. "You need to run Lian's blood right now, she's got a mind-altering drug in her system, she's been controlled this whole time, we all have. We're _victims_," she implored. "Please, believe us."

Linda looked between the three of them. "What happened to that Green Lantern-"

"I had to get Milagro out of there," said Chris stonily. "When I got back and they told me what had happened? My father, he understood-"

"You attacked _him_."

"We needed to go _alone_," stressed Chris. "He wasn't going to let-"

"Mom," said Iris, interrupting him, reaching out to touch her mother. "It's over, now. You can tell them that. It's over."

There was a silence. And then Linda nodded. "Come on," she said quietly. "Let's find you someplace to lie down."

Iris didn't even look at Chris or Milagro. "Can I see Jai first?"

Minutes later, they had all assembled in Jai's hospital room, Linda unwilling to leave Chris and Milagro unattended. The night before, the boy had been attached to machines and ventilators, keeping his breath steady but otherwise only monitoring his vitals.

Now, there were machines surrounding him, tubes draped across his small body, attached at his nose, mouth, neck, and hands, an IV dripping into his bloodstream. His heartbeat was irregular, but it was beating. Iris sat beside him, staring at him, unable to speak. There was silence.

And then, voices from outside the room. "Is she here? Oh, my God, is she here?"

"Don't, calm down, they're all safe, they're under observation, they're all here, they're safe-"

"When did they get back? What happened? Where are they?"

"This is unacceptable. This is absolutely unacceptable. Don't you – do _not_ walk away, we are _not _done and there are-"

"I don't have time for your-"

"-there are _actions_ to be accounted for here, we are not letting anyone skate by through this, this was a _serious_ assault on members of the Justice League, and-"

Rustling sounds, that of something physically aggressive. "They're _children_. It doesn't _matter_."

"I think that someone who'd say something like that really doesn't value his place in the League, if you ask me-"

"After what we've been through, you have _no _right to-"

Utter silence.

Iris glanced around at the others; her mother hardly looked away from her son, Milagro met Iris's gaze worriedly, and Chris was staring outside the room, looking straight through the walls, shocked. Milagro looked to him. "What happ-"

Chris looked at them, then opened the door, leaving the room. Members of the Justice League – Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, a tired, beaten-looking Superman – stood before them, a pulsing fury running through the room, quelled only by the man who had just walked into the room, whom they all were watching.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, pale with dark black hair, wearing simple, fine black clothes. The whole room held its breath waiting for him to speak.

His heavy, hooded eyes scanned over all of them, briefly pausing on Iris, standing at the door with her mother, Milagro and Chris.

Then Bruce Wayne quietly asked, "Where is my son?"

Iris stepped forward, before anyone else. "He's here," she said, beckoning to a different room. Bruce didn't even glance at the rest of the League; he followed her as she led him into a small, private hospital room. Damian was lying on the bed, bandaged and attached to machines that monitored his vitals; he seemed, from what Iris could tell, to be doing well.

The man stood beside the bed. His fingers trailed just barely over the boy's hand.

Iris, by the door, said, "This wasn't his fault."

Bruce didn't look up.

"It wasn't yours either."

Damian shifted slightly on the bed, his eyelids fluttering. "F…father?"

Iris left.

After another moment, the Flash stepped forward and took hold of his daughter and wife. They entered Jai's hospital room, and closed the door behind them, leaving Milagro and Chris with the rest of the League.

There was a tense pause, and then the two teammates looked at each other, and Milagro said, "We can explain all of this."

"I hope so," said the League's Green Lantern, eyes narrowed. "You do realize the two of you have now committed assault on _three _different members of the Justice League?"

"Yes," said Chris earnestly, "but it was necessary."

"Superboy," said Wonder Woman regally. "We are your mentors. Violence is never necessary."

"We had to save Damian. And Lian."

"Chris," said Superman, looking only at his son. "We all appreciate that you had to protect members of your team. But we do not tolerate betrayal within our own-"

"You're one to talk, Superman," interrupted Green Lantern, his eyes like daggers, staring at the Kryptonian. "You facilitated the escape of a Green Lantern being held under jurisdiction of the GLC. And you attacked _me_."

Superman didn't quite look around. "John-"

"I think I should ask you and your boy to leave now, Clark," he continued. "To be honest with you, this experience has been a real eye-opener. Think it's pretty clear where your loyalties lie."

"With my _family_."

"Above the League?"

In disbelief, Superman looked to Wonder Woman. She met his gaze, and bowed her head slightly. "We didn't expect this from you. I will admit, my trust in you is…shaken."

"Diana-"

"Don't appeal to me. You are not beyond reproach."

The doors opened again, and shouting and loud swearing came from the man who entered, his face deep and lined, his chest heaving. "Where is she?" demanded Red Arrow, shaking slightly. "Where's Lian?"

Milagro began, "She's in-" but didn't even need to finish her sentence before Roy found the door she was gesturing to, and disappeared. Black Canary and Animal Man entered right after him, the woman with a bruise visible on her forehead. She eyed Milagro and Chris warily, but said nothing.

"Is everyone all right?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," replied Chris, looking at her. "Everyone's back and we're all alive. Sin is fine, she's with Maxy right now, resting."

One last time, the doors opened again, and finally they were all there; the Blue Beetle didn't hesitate, only went to his sister and embraced her, sighing in relief. Ignoring everyone else in the room, he said, "_Never_ do that again, Milagro. _Never_."

Wonder Woman surveyed them all, then declaimed, "This is a matter that requires discussion and deliberation, but I'm sure it would be for the best to allow everyone some time to rest and recuperate. Those of us without children here will leave, only on the word that we will all receive a detailed report of what happened tonight, and that the children will be kept under close surveillance until we are certain of what occurred. We will meet soon in the Watchtower to decide how this will affect the League."

"No," said Blue Beetle, still holding on to his younger sister. "I mean, sure, but I'm sorry, Wonder Woman, I'm not gonna be there."

They all stared at him. "Excuse me?" asked Wonder Woman.

Jaime shook his head. "I'm retracting my League membership," he said. "I, uh, I can do that, right?"

"Yes," said Wonder Woman, watching him carefully, "but are you absolutely sure?"

"Yeah," he replied. "This…I mean…I've been thinking about it for a while, but this just proves that, you know, all that big-league team stuff isn't for me. I'm better suited to taking care of what I know I can. Sorry."

Wonder Woman nodded. "If you wish. Then the remaining League will convene."

"Diana," said John Stewart suddenly. "If we're bringing up the question of leaving the League…"

"John. Please."

"Not me. Him."

Superman looked around. A chill ran through them all.

"You can't fire Superman," said Chris indignantly. "He _is _the Justice League!"

"There have been Leagues without him."

"You have no reason-"

"Chris," said Superman.

The boy looked at him. Clark nodded his head slightly.

"I'll go," he said.

Chris stared at him. "What?" he asked. "No. No, you won't. Superm… _Dad_. You _are_ the League."

"No, Chris, they're right. I did not act fairly today. My judgment is clouded by my concern for you and your team, and if that's going to put other members of _my_ team at risk, then I have a responsibility to step back."

There was a heavy, blanketing silence.

Wonder Woman said, "If that's all, then," and in a few moments, she and Green Lantern were gone.

Superman turned to his son. Without looking him in the eye, he said, "Chris. Let's go home."

"I'm not leaving them," said Chris, peering at his father. "Don't you think we've been broken up enough already?" Silence. Chris stared at his father, trying to force him to meet his gaze. Quietly, his voice burning desperately, he said, "They are my team, and they are my friends, and I love them." He paused, then breathed, "And I am never leaving anything I love, ever again."

Superman said nothing. He nodded. Chris turned and joined Milagro and Superman merely sat down on a seat in the waiting room, silent.

The door separating Bruce and Damian from the rest of them had no lock, so Bruce had, childishly, tucked the back of a chair underneath the doorknob. It was not a failsafe lock, of course, but perhaps it would give them some privacy. Damian didn't protest, but he knew that there was no one who would interrupt a conversation between Batman and his son.

Bruce took a seat beside Damian. Feeling was already returning to Damian's limbs, but his fingers, and his feet, around his ankles, still felt heavy. His face had been bandaged and disinfected and the break in his nose had been miraculously clean. He felt slightly dizzy from the blood loss, and his chest ached where he'd been shot and his jaw hurt when he moved it and he could feel that he was missing a few teeth, but he felt fine. They were minor injuries compared to what he was used to.

For a long time, neither of them said anything. Damian defiantly waited for his father to begin. Bruce only stared right through Damian, at the hospital bed.

Finally, after the voices outside had quieted, Damian pulled himself up to a more sitting position, tugged an IV out of his hand and said lowly, "I don't want your apology."

"I wasn't going to apologize."

"You were. For accusing me, for not trusting me, all of that nonsense. I don't want it."

Bruce looked at him, an eyebrow slightly cocked. "Why not?"

"Because it _was_ me," he said angrily. "You were _right_. This was just as much my fault as anyone else's."

"This was not your fault."

"It was. Don't pretend to forgive me."

"I'm not pretending."

"_We _did this. _I'm _responsible for what happened to Chris, at the very least."

"You wouldn't have hurt him. Not if you were in control of your actions."

"Just because I was _used_ doesn't absolve me from all responsibility."

"You are seeking punishment, Damian."

"No!"

Damian looked at his father, then shook his head and turned away. Again, he returned his gaze to meet his father's.

"Cheshire," he said, as if begging him. "Tell them they need to find her. Now."

"Damian-"

"_Father_. Please."

"Dick has already assembled a team," said Bruce quietly. "They took off before you even got back."

"How did you know?"

"Red Arrow told us his daughter was planning to meet with you. Black Canary relayed what her daughter said when she woke up."

"And you went straight to Cheshire? Instead of Lian?"

"It was Dick's idea. He knew Jade Nguyen had been involved the last time we saw Slade Wilson. And he said that he didn't believe Lian Harper was capable of this."

Damian looked at him. "No," he said. "She is. She's ruthless. But not to us."  
Silence.

Damian said, "I tore them apart," and wouldn't meet his father's gaze.

Bruce shifted in his seat. He leaned forward. "Damian," he said.

"I tear apart everything I touch," said Damian. "And everyone."

Bruce paused. "Son."

"Iris's family," muttered Damian, shaking his head. "Jai's not waking up. He's brain-dead. And Iris can't run anymore and her twin brother… you don't understand what he was to her. You can't understand. You don't know her."

"You are not responsible to what happened to her."

"It's not like you would care!" said Damian loudly, glaring at his father. "You don't give a damn about her. You don't care about Jai, or Lian or Chris or Sin or Maxine or Milagro or anyone. You don't care about anyone but me, and that's _not fair_. This whole time, you've only been concerned with me and whether or not I did this but that doesn't matter. I don't want you and don't want your forgiveness and I don't want to hear what you have to say. I want you to leave."

"I'm not going to leave, Damian."

"Fine." Damian heaved his legs over the side of his bed and stumbled a little then got to his feet and, shakily, headed towards the door.

"Damian. Stop."

The boy reached the door, tugged the chair away, let it clatter to the floor before his father, and wrenched the door open, slamming it behind him. Chris and Milagro looked up, and Maxy and Sin were with them too, now. Maxine was sitting, leaning against Milagro, who held her close, and Sin was in a wheelchair, and they all fell silent when Damian appeared.

He began to limp over to them, and Chris went to him and pulled Damian's arm around his shoulders and helped him to a seat beside Milagro. Damian reached up his arm and laid it across the top of Milagro's seat, and he leaned in and murmured something into her ear. She looked at him and nodded gravely. Maxine reached out and took Chris's hand, and he leaned close to her, gently brushing her hair with one hand.

Bruce said nothing, but watched them. He hesitated, then retreated back into Damian's empty hospital room.

They waited together for a long time.

And then a door opened, and Milagro could feel Damian's body go instantly tense beside her. Roy Harper closed a door behind him, without looking up. None of them said anything. He paused by the door, unmoving.

Maxine asked, "Can we see Lian now?"

He looked at them with tired eyes. Damian didn't know Red Arrow exceptionally well, but he'd seen him work with Dick enough to recognize the abject exhaustion on his face. He kept his dark eyes on the man.

He said, "She doesn't want to see you."

"Please," said Sin, as soon as the words came out of his mouth. "Please."

He looked at her. After another moment, he ran his teeth across his bottom lip and then, glancing away from them, he said lowly, "She's very…"

"We can imagine," said Damian. He saw the look on the older man's face as his eyes flickered across the wounds on Damian's face, down at the bandages on his body. Roy didn't say anything.

Milagro said, "I can get Iris. I'm sure she wants to see Iris, right?" She went to stand up, but Damian held out an arm, stopping her.

"Iris is with her family," he said, without looking away from Lian's father. "Give them some peace."

Milagro nodded, but stood up all the same. "Please," she said. "Can we just… just let us see her."

Roy looked at the five of them for a long moment, and then he let out a breathy sigh. "Okay," he said. "Be gentle."

"Of course," said Chris, nodding, helping Damian to his feet. The man gestured for them to stay there and then went back into the room.

A short silence, and then the door opened again. Maxine pushed Sin's wheelchair, and they filed into the room; Roy closed the door behind them and stood there, watching them.

There she was, on a hospital bed, underneath sheets, unmoving. She was lying on her side, the bangs of her short hair and the sheets obscuring her face. Maxine pushed Sin to the right side of the bed, Lian's back facing them. Milagro and Chris shared an uneasy glance as Damian limped over to the left side of her bed, his eyes half-closed, focused on the bed, searching for her gaze.

Sin reached out a weak hand and put it on Lian's back.

"Big sister," she said.

Like a child, Lian pulled the sheets up to cover her face.

"Big sister," said Sin again, putting both hands on Lian. She rested her head on the side of the bed, leaning gently against Lian's prone body. "Are you okay?"

Lian's voice came from underneath the sheets, muffled and wretched. "Leave."

"We just want to see you," said Maxine. "Are you okay, Lian?"

"Please," she said, "stop."

They said nothing. Damian swayed slightly, and Milagro reached out and took firm grip of his arm; he shook her off and put his hands on Lian's bed, steadying himself. His voice hushed, Damian said, "Lian."

She didn't reply. She didn't even move.

"Lian. I want you to know something."

Nothing. A muscle in Damian's jaw jumped, and he pulled his hands away from her bed.

He said, "Iris doesn't love you."

"_Damian_," came Chris's voice, shocked, and Milagro's expression melted into horror and Maxine's jaw dropped and Sin looked up, eyes widening, and Roy was already crossing the room, saying, "Okay, that's enough-"

Out of the sheets emerged the small, dark-haired girl, and the sound of her stinging slap on his face rang out in the room.

He swayed even more unsteadily, his eyes going slightly out of focus, and then his knees buckled; Milagro caught him, and lowered him gently to sit on the ground.

Lian pressed a hand to her forehead, her eyes wide and frightened, and he hung his head in between his knees and then her gaze went hard and she slipped off the bed. Her father said her name, reached out to hold her back, but she pushed him roughly away, kneeling down beside Damian.

"You," she whispered furiously, "are an asshole."

He nodded, his eyelids blinking out of sync.

Then she leaned forward and put her arms around him, pressing his face into the crook of her neck.

"But I'm sorry," she breathed. "I'm so, so, so…"

She pulled away. He met her gaze.

"I didn't mean that," he said, his speech slurred slightly. She leaned his head up, pulled open one of his eyes, inspected it in the light. "I was just trying to – get a reaction-"

"I know," she said. "That doesn't make it any less manipulative and asshole-ish. You have a serious concussion. Why aren't you in bed?"

"I wanted to – see you."

She let him go, pulled away from him. She ran a hand through her short hair.

She stood up.

"Thank you," she said, looking at him, then to everyone else. "I…" she stopped abruptly, searching for words. She shook her head, averting her gaze. "You don't have to do this."

"Do what?" asked Maxine.

Lian looked up again, at Sin. "Forgive me."

There was silence.

"Well," said Chris, stepping forward, taking hold of her hand, "I, for one, don't see anything we have to forgive." She didn't look at him. "That wasn't you out there, Lian. We know that. And you're one of us, always. I'm just glad you're safe."

She nodded, refusing to look at any of them.

"Is…Jai…?"

"He's alive," said Milagro.

She let out a little sigh of relief. None of them said anything else, although Damian glanced at Milagro, something clear and lucid in his eyes.

Lian held out her arm. Damian took it, and she helped him to his feet. He leaned heavily against her, still unsteady. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I can sort of…" she paused. She cleared her throat. "I can sort of remember it." She reached her hand up and brushed against his bruised and mottled skin. "Can I ask you something?"

"Depends," he said, his eyes closed as her fingers danced across his face.

"Were you holding back?"

He opened one eye.

"Did I really beat you?"

"Lian," said her father reproachfully, but there was the beginning of a hint of a smile on her face, and then Damian closed his eyes and bowed his head and returned the smirk.

"The poison was a stroke of random luck," he said. "Without it, I would've destroyed you."

She let out a long, artificial sigh, and then she reached up and kissed his cheek. "I'm sorry," she repeated, sincerely, then she asked, "Can I talk to Iris?"

"No," said Damian.

"She's with her family," explained Milagro. "Maybe we should just give them some more time alone together."

Silence. Lian said, "She probably doesn't want to see me."

"I'm sure she does," said Milagro.

"I… I did…"

"She's forgiven you," said Damian, and he pulled away from Lian. "I should go."

"Go?" echoed Maxine. "Why? No, stay. At least until Iris comes out."

"No," said Damian. "I need to go. I'll see her later. The rest of you, as well. Lian, Sin – heal quickly. Everyone, get some rest."

He headed towards the door slowly, limping. Sin asked, "What do we do?"

Damian stopped. He turned around to look at her. "Go home," he said simply. "Be with your family. Be grateful."

"No," said Sin. "We. The Teen Titans."

There was a silence. They all watched him. He blinked back at them.

Milagro said, "I don't think we'll be meeting for a while, Sin. Spend a few weeks for everyone to get better, and then I'll try to let everyone know when we-"

"No," said Damian.

"No?" asked Chris, watching Damian.

"We're done," said Damian.

None of them said anything. Slowly, Milagro asked, "…what?"

"We're done," repeated Damian. "It's over. It's too dangerous."

"Damian," said Lian. "I'm not going to-"

"I don't mean you," he said. "I don't mean any one of _us _in particular anymore. But I don't think we can ignore what happened here. We're too close. This kind of team puts everyone's safety and even identity in jeopardy. We can't afford to take those risks anymore."

"No," said Chris. "I'm not leaving this team."

"Yes," replied Damian, "well, that's your prerogative. Know that I intend to cut my share of tech and funding, however."

"_What?_" asked Milagro disbelievingly. "You're kidding. Damian. You _are _our funding."

Damian nodded. He looked at all of them with dark eyes, swollen by bruising. "Yes," he said. "I quit."

He left.

He went to the room where his father was and said, tiredly, "Let go home," and, wordlessly, they left the hospital, slipping into a car with tinted windows, leaving the rest of the team alone.


	14. Epilogue: Ghosts of ourselves

Epilogue: Ghosts of ourselves

_"Lock the door. In the dark journey of our night,  
two childhood stands in the corner of the bedroom  
watching the way we take each other to bits  
to stare at our heart. I hear a story  
told in sleep in a lost accent. You know the words._

_[…]_

_Put out the light. Years stand outside on the street  
looking up to an open window, black as our mouth  
which utters its tuneless song. The ghosts of ourselves,  
behind and before us, throng in a mirror, blind,  
laughing and weeping. They know who we are."  
-_Carol Ann Duffy, from "Close"

She flipped a switch, and the lights in the Tower flickered slightly, methodically turning on, one by one.

"So," she said. "I guess this is it."

Milagro watched the empty, silent rooms warily. She could see so clearly them all sitting there, laughing – playing a game – being lectured by their families. There was a stinging pain in her chest and a tugging in her belly.

"I thought there'd be more than just us," said Chris quietly. Milagro glanced at him.

"I'm not sure you can blame them," she sighed. "Iris can't leave her family. And they're right, Maxy needs more training before she gets back. She's young. We all knew that."

She stepped forward, trailed her fingers along the couch she had so often draped herself across, laughing at the others.

"Sin might be back. Black Canary said it wasn't for long, right? But you know what Lian always said about Sin being here, that she didn't fit in all that well. I think she's just gonna take some time to get back on track, and heal. She's still pretty beat up."

"Milly," said Chris. She turned around to look at him. He was leaning against the wall beside the door, his arms folded across his chest, his brow knotted in something like grief and exhaustion.

"Yes?" she answered, her voice tinkling and made of glass.

"You're not coming back, are you?"

She watched him. Then, slowly, she said, "No. Not unless we have another Lantern here to babysit me."

"They said that?"

She nodded. "The ring's still mine," she said. "But I don't get to use it without authorization."

Chris said nothing. "That's a joke," he said.

"I know," she replied.

They didn't move. And then he asked, "You think Lian's ever coming back?"

"Not anytime soon. Not until she finds her mother, I bet. And tears her apart."

Chris nodded. He unfolded his arms, rubbed his hands across his thighs, his eyes darting around the room. "I can't," he said, not looking at her, "keep this up on my own."

"That's okay," she said. "You don't have to."

"Someone should."

"Someone else can."

"I _want_ to. I don't – I can't do it by myself."

"That's okay," Milagro repeated. They didn't say anything, just stood there in the artificially lit Tower, alone and deep and quiet. She looked at him. "Chris," she said. "You have as much right as any of them not to be here. What I – what I did to you…" she broke off, ashamed.

He didn't look up at her, only blinked. "It's funny," he said, with no humor in his voice. "You start to think you can't feel pain anymore. And then…"

She closed her eyes, turning away.

Chris swallowed his words, and then he said, "Did you know Damian left?"

Milagro looked back at him, and there was no accusation, no fear in his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"I heard they left the country," Chris answered. "I don't know where they went. I thought about finding him and getting him to come back for this, but I don't think he would."

"Good riddance," sniffed Milagro. "He was obnoxious, and he was a bully."

They were silent.

Chris said, quietly, "He really, really cared about us."

"Yeah, well. He could've shown it more."

"I don't think he knew how to," said Chris. "I think that's what Iris was always trying to teach him."

"Iris didn't have to teach him anything," said Milagro harshly. "She's just a kid, she doesn't know anything better than any of us ever did. And now her family's falling apart and she's falling apart and there is no more team and it's his-"

She stopped herself. Chris looked at her with pure, crystalline eyes. "His fault?" he asked, his voice a breath, soft but kind.

She looked away. "This is nobody's fault, and I know that," she said. "But not having anybody to blame makes it much harder to take in."

"Milagro," said Chris. She looked up, and he went to her, gently put strong arms around her. "You should probably go home," he said, burying his face in her shoulder, her long, coarse hair. "I don't think anyone likes knowing you and I are here alone."

She returned the embrace, holding him tightly. "This is it," she said. "This is all we get to be."

"We'll see." They broke apart. "You need a ride home?" he asked her. She smiled at him slyly.

"If you're offering," she answered, and he returned the smile and scooped her into his arms, and carried her out into the darkening sky.

Far away, in a cave underneath Wayne Manor, a man held a small phone up to his ear.

"Hi, Wally," he breathed. "It's Dick. I just… I wanted to let you know that I'm worried about you, man. I hope Jai's doing better. Heard the League misses you. If you ever…if you need somebody. I'm here."

Dick took the phone away from his ear and ended the call. The Batcave was silent and dark. He didn't move for a moment, and then he dialed another number, pressed the phone to his head again. This time, with a gentle _click_, someone answered.

"Harper household."

"Roy."

A little breath, like a sigh. "I didn't know you were still around. Thought you guys were leaving."

"Bruce took Damian, that's all. I'm still here."

"You in touch with them?"

"Not unless it's an emergency."

Roy hesitated, then he said, "I really need him to talk to her."

"Damian?"

"Yeah. Someone to get her up back on her feet."

"She's not listening to you?"

"You know her. She never listened to me."

"Damian won't help. He won't talk at all. Get Iris."

"Wally's not speaking to me."

Dick let out a breath of disappointment. "Yeah," he said. "Me neither."

Neither of them said anything.

"You know anything new about Jai?" asked Dick.

"We'd have heard if he woke up."

Dick was silent, and then he said, "I don't think he's going to. Bruce got the hospital records. He's on life support. Completely unresponsive."

Roy swore, and it rang between them in the silence. "I want to kill her, for this," he said, and his voice was low. "I know she's done things I should be far angrier about, but I want to _kill her_ for this."

"We're all looking for her."

Silence. Then Roy said, "I think Lian knows something. But she won't tell me. I don't know if it's because she feels so guilty, or because she – because she's trying to protect her mother, or…"

"If anyone finds anything," said Dick, "I will get it sent straight to you."

There was a pause.

Dick said, "The League hasn't gone public with the adjustments yet."

"The League has never been public."

"People are going to start noticing that Blue Beetle, the Flash, Superman, and you aren't working with them anymore."

"What do you want me to say? Lian needs me here."

"I would think she can't stand you right now."

Neither of them said anything, and then Roy let out a loud sigh. "Dick," he said. "Thanks for calling. But there really isn't anything I can do for you right now."

"I'm not asking you to-"

"Dick," interrupted Roy. "Thank you."

Nothing. _Click_.

Dick lowered the phone

It was a cold and misty morning, a dense rain falling across the grassy moors, the craggy cliffs. The car slid silently through the dampness, cutting sharp slits through pastures and fields, heading to somewhere remote and quiet.

The older man drove wordlessly, the windshield wipers occasionally flitting across his line of vision, sweeping the drizzly rain from the glass before him. In the seat beside him, a boy with dark hair curling at the ends and eyes just as dark as his father's pressed his elbow against the window, resting his hand at his lips, covering his mouth. He stared through the window, watching the green light skim past them.

They came to a cliff near the ocean, a secret entrance to a long-abandoned headquarters buried underneath the thick, fertile soil. The car rolled on to the greenery, scaring a few sheep away, and then stopped and they both sat there in silence, listening to the rain pattering the roof of the car and the gentle _tink-tink-tink_ of the engine cooling.

Damian said, "I don't want you to go with me."

Bruce peered out into the cold morning, and then shifted his gaze to look at his son heavily. "I won't," he said. "If you don't want."

For a long moment, Damian said nothing, staring out past the window and the rain and the moisture. Then he opened the car door with a _creak_, and got out. He hovered for a moment, door open, standing in the icy precipitation, then slammed the door of his father's car shut again and shoved his hands aggressively into his pockets, setting off across the heath. Bruce sat in the car, alone.

Damian had been to this place many times, and it occupied so much of his memory before his time as Robin that it seemed to be wholly what little he had left of his mother: the warmth of her gloved hand holding his, carrying him like a child, or the sound of her voice drowning in the rain, echoing in the steel beneath the land. There was an old entrance that had been blown open and never repaired, no doubt in the last furious frenzy to empty the place, dispose of the evidence, desert him forever. There was no pain in his heart, but only an empty, vacant sort of pulse, something not strong enough to push his blood, poison, congealed mud, through his veins.

He entered the place as one would enter a church, bowing to the gargoyles which no longer watched, security cameras with their lenses crushed. There was a reverence for him as this was surely the place, if not of his birth, then of his development, of his creation, of what turned him into what he became. He spent many years underground in England, underneath the great city of London itself and away, here, in the midst of the purest, simplest form of nature. Damian had an immense respect for a great many things, and some of those things were the power of the rain turning solid earth into mud, and the walls of steel carved into pure rock, and love.

He traced through the place slowly, remembering every entrance and exit, every return and every surrender. He remembered his teachers and his adversaries and his mother. He remembered doctors, and a team of surgeons, and monstrosities the likes of which a child should not see, but which he saw, and which only strengthened him. There was only strength in these walls. Damian allowed himself to touch the harsh, unloving metal.

There was a room, heavy metal door swung shut, even in the poor order to which the base had fallen. He took it and held it in his strong hands and pulled it open, unsettling dust and red rust around the doorframe.

He peered into the room. There was no light, not even a dull red heating lamp; he pulled a flashlight from his pocket and turned it on, shone it in.

The room was smaller than he remembered, full of every single instrument and mechanical device he remembered, identical except for the dirt and the dust, and the fact that the giant glass orb meant to hold a fetus or an unconscious child was broken, the top half shattered into pieces, completely unfixable.

Damian reached out and pressed his hand against the glass.

He did not remember being confined to this orb. He could barely recall a time when he had been small enough to fit. After he outgrew this small feeding tank, he was removed to a bio-tube when necessary, and he could remember that, remember fading, not of his own will, into darkness. He could remember coming into consciousness again, his body suddenly acutely aware, and a warm, wet feeling invading every inch of his skin, sickening, suffocating, stinging the inside of his nose while his back, along his spine, burned as the disinfecting fluid touched his raw wounds. He could remember being unable to inhale, a pain in his eyes, fingernails and toenails soft, like they could slide right off his skin. He could remember his hair feeling unconnected to his scalp, and a weightlessness in his body, and his insides clenching within his liquid world, the oversized test tube of his entire universe.

Damian reached into the broken orb, pointing his flashlight into it. His fingers sloshed through a layer of liquid at the body, viscous and wet, but there was no carcass there. It made him sick, but it also filled him with an unanticipated rush of forgiveness for his mother, that she would not leave a thing there for him to touch, touch with his fingers that she molded so perfectly back when he drifted patiently in his viscous, wet world.

Damian stood there in the place of his birth, the flashlight pointing at the floor, and he pressed the hand anointed with the liquid at the bottom of the glass orb to his eyes, holding back everything before it could become. Memories of his infanthood made him vulnerable, but he was prepared, and there was no one there to see.

It wasn't more than an hour later that Damian returned, exiting his old steel home, watching his breath condense and materialize in the cold daytime air. The rain had stopped. From across the grass, he could see the car, and his father standing beside it.

He approached it with caution, stopping a few yards away, regarding his father with something odd on his face.

Bruce asked, "Are you all right?"

Damian considered this for a long time, watching his father. Then he glanced at the car behind, then up at the dull, gray sky, then back to where he had entered the compound inside of which he had come to be.

He turned back to his father and he said, quietly, "Let's go home," and then headed around the car, opened a door, and slid into the passenger's seat. His father did not hesitate, but entered the car and turned the ignition, and they drove away from the underground fortress, pulsing underneath their feet.

In a bedroom a continent away, the night still an inky black outside, a girl lay alone in her bed, surrounded by pink sheets and stuffed animals, and couldn't sleep. The silence was deafening and heavy – and then abruptly broken by the sounds of footsteps, light on the carpet inside the very room. Lian, in bed, did not close her eyes.

"Please," she said, tiredly, "tell me you're here to kill me."

A voice from the shadows. "No," said Iris, her bright hair colorless in the dark room. "I'm not."

There was a silence. Lian set herself up on her elbows, then, reluctantly, sat up. "I thought you'd never come," she said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I thought after what I did…"

"That wasn't you."

"Yes," said Lian. "It was."

The silence was cold. Iris walked to her bed, sat down on the edge. "I have known you," said Iris, "since I was born. You've been my best friend for almost as long. Give yourself some credit. I know there's no way you'd ever hurt me like that."

Lian didn't move. She couldn't see Iris in the darkness, but she could feel her body, the dip in the bed where she sat. "I'm too easily taken advantage of, Iris," said Lian, reaching out with one hand to brush against Iris's arm. "Too easy to manipulate, to handle, to control. Everybody says that Damian is the one with the darkness inside of him, but you don't know how angry I get sometimes, Irey. You don't know what I'm capable of."

"Yes, I do," said Iris. "I told you, Lian. You've been my best friend for years. I know everything about you, even things your dad can't tell about you."

Lian stared at the dark outline of Iris's face. "I wish you understood," she said, "how much I don't deserve this."

Bluntly, Iris said, "My brother is everything but dead. If anyone is clear on what and how you deserve anything, it's me."

"I want you to leave me alone," said Lian, closing her eyes, bowing her head slightly so she couldn't even imagine she was looking at Iris's face. "I want you to leave me alone, or I want you to kill-"

In the depth of Lian's dark bedroom, warm and soft, sunken into the bed where they sat, burning hands touched Lian's shoulders gently, and lips touched against hers. A roaring, inconsolable silence crashed over her, suddenly hyper-alert, pulse pounding, belly roiling, every nerve in her body screaming alarm bells, and-

Iris broke away from the kiss, her mouth close enough to breathe into Lian's.

Neither of them said anything. Their noses touching, Lian whispered, "Damian-"

"He knows," replied Iris, just as quietly, "that I love him, and I do, Lian, of course I do. You know me, and you know that." She was silent. "But he's broken, after this. He thinks he doesn't have anything left to give. So he's given me this."

Lian stared at Iris's formless shape in the darkness. "I don't get to be given away," she breathed.

"I know," said Iris, and she kissed her again.

"Especially not by Damian."

"I know," said Iris, lips on the corner of Lian's mouth.

"I love you," said Lian breathlessly. "A lot. I have for, like, years now."

Iris's lips curved into a smile on Lian's skin. "If anyone," she whispered, "knows what it is you deserve," she put her arms around Lian, holding her tightly, "it's me."

There was a silence.

Then Lian pulled away and said, "Iris."

Iris held onto her hands, but mirrored her movement. "Lian."

"Come with me."

"To where?"

"I don't know," whispered Lian. "But I'm not staying here, and I'm not waiting for anyone to find my mother for me. I know who's responsible and I know a hell of a lot more than any of they do. I can't eat and I can't sleep and I'm not even going to be able to look you in the eye tomorrow because of what I did. Come with me. Let's find her."

"Where do we start?"

Lian didn't answer immediately. She considered this for a long time, holding Iris's hands in her own, the gentle touch of another hot mouth still lingering about her lips. She felt a burning low in her belly, the anger-turned-darkness that everyone said Damian had inside of him, but which she had felt so vividly and strongly that it had torn her apart. She thought of Damian's hands, strong and soft and so often bruised, and she thought of a team broken up and beaten down and divided into pieces.

"_Where do we start?_" repeated Iris's voice inside of her, eager and terrifyingly ready, and the answer filled her up like someone breathing oxygen into her lungs, expanding and rising inside of her, through her navel and belly and throat and bubbling into her mouth, uncontrollable and filled with lusty promise, and she clung tightly to Iris's hands and she opened her mouth.

She asked, under her breath in the dead of the night-

"…How far can you take us?"


End file.
